Origami Hunt Guide: 鱗廻RIN-NE - Start

鱗廻RIN-NE is the Hunt associated with the Origami Event, ending on the 25th of July. It's a combination story, quest, and hunt all done via a HUD, and you can do any part of it or all of it in pretty much every order. You can find a variety of helpful guides on their Help Page, but I'll cover the basics in this post. Like all of my Hunt Guides, my commentary is in italics while the plain text is quoting from the storyline. This story is enormous, so I'll be breaking it up into parts for easy of posting and reading.
  

- START - 
- NIKICHI'S QUEST - ICHITARO'S QUEST - SEISHICHI'S QUEST -  
- DAIRO'S QUEST - TOUBEE'S QUEST - EIKICHI'S QUEST -
- FINAL QUEST -

To start with, teleport to the starting area. Walk through the Tori Gates to a special area aimed at getting your scripts under 1000KB, including instructions on the walls and stands which will check your scripts and tell you if you're all right. I ended up modifying a few of the things I was wearing to make them no script after making a copy of them, but that involved rezzing things and I did it on my platform. There are also no script outfits here, so if your clothing is giving you fits, feel free to change.

Once your scripts are set, you walk through the darkness. You will be stopped partway through as it checks your script level, but if you did your work well you'll be fine. On the other end, right in the middle of the path, is where you get your HUD. It appears at the bottom of your screen and will immediately ask for permission to teleport your avatar - you want to give that permission! Once you're set for permissions, sit on one of the boats and click it to start the events.

Relay For Life: The Body is a Fortress Hunt

The Body is a Fortress Hunt has already begun in the week before the Relay for Life Weekend Walk and Events. Each Cancer-Fighting Hero looks different and information about them is included in the notecard you get when you find them along with landmark to and a clue for the next hero you're looking for.

Like all of my hunt guides, my text is in italics and I'll be quoting extensively - though not of the hints, as those might change. The hunt items are very small, especially considering you are looking on an entire sim, but they are placed out in the open instead of tucked behind something, which is a boon. Along the way you get a full perm copy of each Hero, and at the end there's a prize location full of freebies.  

You start the hunt in the Starting Point at the end of the instructions ring. The first instruction box gives you the first location and a hint to guide you. 

You're looking for Lymphocytes on RFL Survivor.

"Lymphocytes are mature, infection-fighting cells that develop a blood stem cell in the bone marrow. Lymphocytes play a very important role in your body...as they are the main cells that make up lymphoid tissue, a major part of the immune system. Lymphoid tissue are found in lymph nodes, the thymus gland, the spleen, the tonsils and adenoids, and is scattered throughout the digestive and respiratory systems and the bone marrow. You may have heard of them referred to as B lymphocytes (B cells) and T lymphocytes (T cells). Lymphocytes help protect the body from germs."

A Tattered Page: Living Blade

"She was known as Scarlett. At that time she was selling arms, although it was beginning to lose its savor. She never stuck at one job for very long. Three, four hundred years at the outside. You didn't want to get in a rut.

Her hair was true auburn, neither ginger nor brown, but deep and burnished copper.. color, and it fell to her waist in tresses that men would kill for, and indeed often had. Her eyes were a startling orange. She looked twenty.. five, and always had."

We first meet Scarlett, one of the four Horsepeople of the Apocalypse in the book Good Omens (from whence all my quotes come), on the last days of her arms dealing with a broken down truck. She quickly shifts gears to become the most successful war correspondent in the world - she always seemed to arrive just as war was breaking out. She has peers, of a sort, spread out across the globe, each embroiled in their own concerns, waiting for a very particular day.

Sunday Squee: Captain Awkward

The Sunday Squee is when I can talk about things that make me happy and excited. The main focus will be on different things people created, from books to movies to television shows to podcasts, and my effort will be to highlight less commonly known things as a way to share what I love. If you want to join in the Sunday Squee, please link back to me so I can enjoy what you love!

Captain Awkward is one of my favorite advice columnists. With a focus on consent, clear communication, and the kinds of boundaries that let relationships flourish - Captain Awkward addresses issues like How to Say No, Boundaries, the Darth Vader Boyfriend, Manners, Captain Awkward's Dating Guide for Geeks, and Enthusiastic Consent. This may seem like an odd site to squee about, but one of the things which makes me happiest is when people who are suffering learn ways to lessen both their and others' suffering. The scripts people offer, the responsibility of the commetariate, the framework it sets up that everyone should be respected and that boundaries should be set and enforced - all of it is incredibly appealing to me, and I've learned a lot from both the Captain and the Awkward Army.

Here are a few of my favorite posts and phrases which set the tone for the advice and the commentariate (do read the comments!) fairly well. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it is ones which stood out to me. In no particular order:

Genre: Dragon General

Genre is on it's last legs, stumbling into camp to rest in just a few days, so make sure you swing by before the troops vanish into the mists. In my last post I went very cute, but this time I approached it with all of the seriousness of a four star general - in this case leader of the Dragon Troops. My poses the full military model, a release from Nantra in the theme of a bugle boy. There is an included bugle prop, but they work well both with and without and are a fun mix of playful and serious. A few are outright pin-up poses, which can be a whole lot of fun in the right hands and with the right outfit. In this case I angled things toward the powerful - a commander in control of her Romanesque world, and Nantra was critical for making my every move polished.

My outfit, from this fetching hat to the tops of a pair of gloriously shiny boots are all from Cog & Fleur, and in addition to this skirted uniform there is also a jacket which can be paired with the high waisted pants for a more masculine edge. I love the pairing of dress and pants, though; it works well for flying, too, since the dark interior of the dress (yay for fully lined clothes!) and the dark pants make for a seamless fit. This is a combination of several templates from several creators, all textured both in inventive ways and so that they work beautifully together. I love the gold accents in particular, and how the black, gold, and red all work together to dramatic effect. By far my favorite piece is the boots, though; materials added to the subtle texturing make for intense gleam and shine that looks impressive up close.

Make sure to swing by Genre and check out all on offer - you won't want to miss it!

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. )

Sunday Squee: TableTop

The Sunday Squee is when I can talk about things that make me happy and excited. The main focus will be on different things people created, from books to movies to television shows to podcasts, and my effort will be to highlight less commonly known things as a way to share what I love. If you want to join in the Sunday Squee, please link back to me so I can enjoy what you love!

I am an enormous fan of games and of people playing games, so one of my joys has been the web show TableTop, hosted by Wil Wheaton for the Geek & Sundry YouTube Station. In it, four people - including Wil - play various games; when the games go on for longer, the action gets trimmed down to about thirty minutes with bits of reaction and commentary from the players interspersed. It's incredibly funny, with a premium on silly voices and roleplaying no matter what the game might be. It's also a fantastic look at the sheer volume of games available for playing in small groups - from traveling games in bags, to complicated games with boards and pieces galore. I love them all, and I love watching and listening to the laughter as people play.

As a testament of my love, I've put together a few YouTube playlists for people new to table top. In addition to the central episodes, seasons one and two had full interviews, all three seasons have gag reels, and a few of the games which turned out to be much longer than the thirty minute length have subsequently come out as extended editions. I've made playlists for several permeations, both for my own and others use, and I encourage you to check it out! They are really a blast, and you might find some new games to play with your friends and family.

• Season One 
• Season One plus Bonus Content


• Season Two
• Season Two plus Bonus Content


• Season Three
• Season Three plus Bonus Content


• Extended Episodes

Sou by creation.jp: Pretty as Sunshine

Sou is celebrating it's first anniversary, which means not only amazing offerings, frequently on sale, but also some amazing freebies.It continues until the 25th of July, so you have plenty of time to swing by, and a note for the boys - there is quite a lot of things for you as well.

A ton of my outfit is actually free, which blows my mind. My dress is from Azul, and is completely and gloriously free. High-cut in the front, square-cut under the arms, the dress has an uneven hem that is longer on each side and simply awash in folds. It moves wonderfully, bending with the movement of my legs and hanging smoothly over my hips. I also really like the random splotches of color across the surface in varying shades of yellow - I don't have a lot of fun yellow clothing, so this is a wonderful addition to my inventory. I'm also wearing matching free earrings, though these are from Earthstones. Gold and white enamel twist in an arch around my earlobe, and the earring is complete with narrower wire to go through my ear - a lovely bit of verisimilitude. My nails are also free, but they're free from an entirely different thing - the Body Art Hunt at La Boheme. You're looking for a cleverly hidden purple bottle - and I promise it is there!

Once I had indulged in piles of free stuff, I tossed out some Linden. While I've been on a bit of a gacha break, I did toss a few Linden into studio Akini's shiny, bitey jewelry gacha and picked up a couple of rares. I resized one to be a bracelet and shifted it to the opposite wrist for some balance. It's always a little risky to resize and move gacha things, but in this case I felt like it was worth it for the effect. Another must-have was this hair from Doe, which comes in single color and split color versions - obviously I went split here, adding a bit of rainbow to an otherwise monochrome look. I love the enormous buns, and the bangs are delightful - I especially like the tiny curls around the ears. And finally, it's katat0nik's ballet slippers that are gracing my toes, available for SLink and Maitreya flat feet. They're rigged, which means the ties around the ankle remain in place no matter what your feet do, and I look forward to stuffing my feet into their square toes the next time I need to get my ballerina on.

Month of the Blog: June 2015

I thought it might be fun to do a monthly review of the State of the Blog in terms of top posts and my own favorite things, if the top posts don't cover them! I made 25 posts, but a chunk of them were quite short, so in terms of output I'd say June was on the low end for me. Emotionally it was a touch month - between the shooting at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston and a number of other incidents of violent racism, I had a hard time pulling together a lot to say that wasn't cursing. The two standout events of the month were the collaborative work "Obedience" and the Mizu story hunt.

This was also the month that Round Eight of the Linden Endowment for the Arts: Artist in Residence sims closed in preparation for Round Nine; I updated my LEA page just in time to change everything again, so I'll be clearing out the AiR lines and beginning my nosy spelunking into the sims soon.

My Favorite Posts:

1. One Amazing Event that Will Never Happen Again - Berlin 1920 was open for 24 Hours, and I couldn't resist a combination of history wandering and snark. If you're human, pick up some 1920s garb and wander through - it's a really neat sim. 
2. Cherry Blossom Decadence - I had fun doing some exploration of cherry blossoms and ended up on a tangent about my favorite anime and manga, which was fun.
3. LEA 1: Bryn Oh's "Obedience" - The Binding of Isaac - I spent several days at the sim in question, watching people come in and move around, as I wrote the review, and it inspired some serious thought about culpability which dovetails nicely with what has been troubling me recently.
4. Sunday Squee: The Toast - this took me ages to research and write, finding many of my favorite posts in the process, and I'll probably end up using it as a review tool myself for finding lost gems.

Most Views from June:

1. Mizu: A Rainy Story - Guide Part One
2. Time Flies on Broken Wings
3. How NOT to Make Friends and Influence People in Second Life
4. Mizu: I'm a Little Cloud
5. LEA 1: Bryn Oh's "Obedience" - The Binding of Isaac
6. Monday Meme: Ask Me Anything Challenge (Ask Questions here)
7. The Generosity of Others
8. Genre (Anime): Cherry Blossom Decadence  
9. One Amazing Event that Will Never Happen Again
10. Mizu: A Rainy Story - Guide Part Two
 

I covered several events:

1. 21 Shoe: .:KC Couture:., ChicChica, Eclectica, Essenz, G & D, {kokoia}, Ingenue, House of Rain, and Glamistry.
2. Genre: Cherry Blossom Decadence and Curb-Stomping Kawaii
3. Second Life's 12 Birthday Celebration
4. A Story Hunt: Mizu - Guide Part One and Guide Part Two
5. Art: "Obedience" - The Binding of Isaac

I did four Sunday Squees:

1. A:S:S Nail Polish 
2. Bishie Style SL
3. Rainbows
4. The Toast

My thoughts on July - I have a building project I'd like to do. I also want to see if I can cover more shopping events - I often buy the clothes, but then never take the pictures or write the posts. I want to get the whole LEA I've created updated and cleaned up for Round 9, and perhaps rework the Page itself to cover art in general, rather than just LEA, and I'd like to explicitly cover and review more art sites. That seems a bit ambitious for one month, but who knows - maybe wishing makes it so!

Happy Birthday Second Life

Second Life is twelve years old, give or take some months, and like always the residents have poured out to make a truly impressive showing. The theme this year is "What Dreams May Come," apropos of the changes that have occurred and the new world on the horizon for Linden Labs. In the past I've tried for comprehensive coverage, but honestly this year my heart hasn't been in anything so mechanical, so instead I'm exploring my way through and I'll show what appeals to me, sim by sim. For people who haven't been by the birthday sims before, the first week has most of the events - we missed those - and the second week you can still explore around and make a nuisance of yourself - but there's a lot fewer people, and a lot less lag.

My general likes and dislikes are pretty simple - I prefer exhibits in the round to ones with doors I have to find. Simple really is better - when I'm impatient I will give complicated builds I have to walk around inside a miss unless something about the outside intrigues me, and text is incredibly difficult to read in three dimensions. On a related note - smaller isn't necessarily a bad thing; having run across a few exhibits that looked like boxes until I scrolled back  A lot of displays try to cover everything, but I think it's really best to pick a straightforward idea and execute it clearly, identifying yourself if that's important. Keep in mind the sheer amount of creations people are putting out, and the time involved in trying to see everything, and be respectful. My absolute favorite are ones which are viewable from above, of for which I can find an angle which excludes its surroundings. One sided invisible layers work beautifully here - allowing one to see in but also allowing for angles from which one can photograph everything. I'll admit this is a personal peccadillo - I really like to photograph things in either isolation or in pleasant layering, and the latter is nearly impossible on the birthday sims.

There are signs along the way for the "SLB HUNT", an event where people leave free items around for you to find. The type and quality is highly variable - this is not a place to get shiny clothes and accessories, but rather a place for enthusiasm, love, and oddity. In contrast to the often slick commercial side of Second Life, this is the place for the enthusiast and harkens back to Second Life's more by-the-pants salad days. There's a lot to experience and enjoy, and a few quiet gems which I wish I could keep long after the birthday sims have faded into the ether again.

Must visit spots:

Wind-Song Garden, on Spectacular. It's a calm garden with flowers which play sounds when you touch one. There is a master flower to turn them all on. Created by Rey Weyland.

Once Upon a Family, on Stupendous. One of the better uses of text that I saw, and a very clear and cohesive design that articulated the theme beautifully.

Childhood Dream Dome, on Stunning. Accept the pop-up menu and follow through one boy's story of his Second Life.

A few interesting stops:
Impressive Gift Stash
Spectacular Gift Stash
Electrify Gift Stash


Places to go for Pod Tours of the sims:
Wonderous Pod Station
Electrify Central Pod Station

( More pictures here. )