Sunday Squee: Flying

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!

Unsurprisingly for someone with wings, I love flying and the ability to fly - and falling and the ability to fall without injury. I'm always slightly miffed by sims which officially deny us the ability - besides the difficulty of something like making it across large bodies of water, and up off of things if we've fallen. Flying is faster than walking, something which can be a blessing at large events, and when there are balls or events that get crowded I often like to fly above even when dancing, using one of my favorite dances that is in midair.

I live above a sim high in the air, and so pretty much every day I'm falling or flying down to someone on the surface, or even just for the sheer glee of falling. Some of my favorite art exhibits are ones which involve or allow for flying - especially fun are the ones which change as you fly around or through them to explore and see new things. While it doesn't often make it into my photographs - these images are some of the exceptions - I fly all the time in Second Life, and simply adore doing so.

( More Sunday Squee here. ) 

Ethereal Star

There are only a few more days left of the seventh round of Gacha Mania, and this adorable outfit from Nomi is the highlight of the event. It comes in three colors - blue, pink, and gray - with boots, a collar, and even star accessories - a neckband and a crown. It's very well rigged, even around the shoulders which can be a tricky area. I especially love all of the detailing, set in mesh but then reinforced by the intricate texture. Each play is 60$L, and you can buy the alpha layers and boot shape for 0$L in a box in front of the display. Hurry to get there before the 10th, so you can get all dolled up like I did!

My skin is one of the new fantasy skins from .:Soul:., a lovely hue of midnight blue that comes with an astonishing number of additions - from different types of stomach, to a bunch of cosmetics, and appliers for just about everything, including nails! The color is simply gorgeous, and as an added bonus .:Soul:.'s amazing ears also have appliers for all of the ears. The final touch - my adorable antennae which turn me from a fae into a butterfly - are a VIP gift for .:Soul:., available in the lounge. The group costs a little to join, but in addition to these adorable antennae you can also get three .:Soul:. skins with special cosmetics for free (appliers not included, but available with the regular skin tones), making it well worth the investment.

Mysteries

I love mysteries, but I get frustrated quickly - it's a problem.

In this case, I ended up in Hestium, a gorgeous little pocket full of well-decorated, adorable houses. There are hints to a greater mystery, and I wandered around a while poking at various corners and peering at various books, clicking everything I could find. One place is marked off limits - I avoided everything I couldn't walk to, and one walled garden; no idea which was the off limits place. I wasn't able to find any secrets, but I did enjoy snapping some shots and encourage you to check out this lovely little corner of the grid.

It's my hair that took me to FaMESHed - a lovely side style from Wasabi Pills with coils of hair over one shoulder, and delicate strands curling down elsewhere. I love how she has begin to use full mesh pieces for the wisps of hair, minimizing the alpha on larger pieces; not only does it minimize alpha occlusion errors, but also it leads to lovely effects like along the edge of the right side of my face, where strands of hair cling and fall in a most natural manner. I paired it with a jewelry set from Cae, bought at the same event, a wonderful necklace and earring set with dangling beads whose color can be changed. The HUD also includes three different areas where the metal can be tinted differently, and options for a short versus long necklace style.

It makes it such fun to pair with outfits, either in matching - or in this case contrasting - colors. The usual contrast for red is green, but when you have a slightly duller pink edging toward a warm orange - like in this dress from Coquet - teal actually works better to play off the color and make both more intense. I fell in love with this dress when I saw it's unusual, contrasting back and the most adorable bow in the world - one which called for a different wing than my usual. I ended up settling on Sway's chibi angel wings, one of the gifts during advent that I cached away for a brighter day. They're a very simple style form someone more known for her furniture than her wings, but the subtle layers and transparency is really fantastic, and I was able to tuck it right under the Coquet bow so that they looked apiece. The final touch were these shoes from Ricielli in a lovely bronze which contrasted beautifully with my gold Sway wings and re-appeared serendipitously in my nails, a hold-over from Fallen Gods' latest skin. I adore how intricate they are, boot in style but with large whorls which echo the whorls of my Cae jewelry. Combining contrasting colors with repeating shapes makes for a balance outfit that seems simple even while being very complicated.

Locations: Oporuto

Oporuto is a lovely sim with meditative vignettes placed regularly around the watery landscapes. A lot of them are art pieces, set among appropriate decorations and with striking particle and mist effects. It is a little bit of a challenge for a fashion shoot, but a lot of fun for purely artistic endeavors.

In addition to the statuary, there are several raised platforms and buildings with different accoutrements and levels of decay. In spirit, it reminds me strongly of The World's End Garden, one of my old favorite sims, though its layout is more regular and less abstracted and layered. I fully expect to spend a lot of time here, exploring it's bits and pieces and seeing what I can make of them; I'd love to meet you there!

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!

Last Remnants of a Tattered Page

There is barely a scrap of paper left in A Tattered Page, but the fire was lovely and warming.

"He did not turn. He felt a cold wind blowing. He was afraid to turn. He felt something in the seat behind him, something as frail as your breath on a cold morning, something as blue as hickory-wood smoke at twilight, something like old white lace, something like a snowfall, something like the icy rime of winter on the brittle sedge. There was a sound as of a thin pane of glass broken – laughter. Then silence. He turned.

The young woman sat at the tiller bench quietly. Her wrists were thin as icicles, her eyes as clear as the moons and as large. Steady and white. The wind blew at her and, like an image on cold water, she rippled, silk standing out from her frail body in tatters of blue rain.

'Go back,' she said."

The Off Season in The Martian Chronicles
by Ray Bradbury

Discussion by Spyralle

Genre: It's Like Magic

Genre's theme is celebration, and it definitely offers up a lot to celebrate about! My fun party dress, with layers of skirt I particularly appreciate, is from Anachron and comes in a wide variety of colors and decorative additions. I love the multiple colors woven into the skirts, the delicate rope belt, and the way Anachron used materials to add texture into some of the levels - you can see it along the rim of the green skirt, catching the light beautifully. It moves very well, folding up in soft curves when my leg goes up and adapting well to wider stances that can sometimes bring heartache to skirt wearers. I also like that the bodice line isn't straight  the angles up to either side set this apart from many other sleeveless gowns of a similar silhouette, as does the symbols woven into the center panel and flanked by darker bands textured very much like leather. I'm also wearing a very sweet, golden ring from Oddfish Studios on my right hand - I didn't get the best shot of it, but it's a lovely bit of glitter that has an accompanying pose for couples, letting them gaze lovingly into each others eyes. I love the shape of the ring, scroll edges supporting a single stone and with the words "Love that moves the Sun and other stars" along the band. It's absolutely lovely.

My final bit from Genre for this look is my top hat from BluPrintz and the HUD which comes with it is so incredibly detailed it blows me away! It lets you tint every part of the hat separately into any color you want - yes, any color; all of them. It has a veil (not shown) and comes in clean and tattered versions. If you want a top hat, this is the hat to buy! The shape is lovely as well, with a tapered edge and the cutest, thinnest brim. I am beyond thrilled with it and how I was able to easily fit it to my hair - something not always easy with hats! My final note is about my adorable shoes from The Little Bat, the freebie that accompanies today's look. They were a midnight mania, which has now been shifted out for a cute platform in orange, and she has new midnight manias regularly, often including some very nice shoes - one of the harder things to find for freebie hunters. Definitely swing by and check out what's on offer - and maybe pick up an outfit or two while you're there!

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.  

Sunday Squee: Linden Endowment for the Arts

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!

People who know about the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) might think this is too broad for a squee, but I've been shocked by how many people I run into who haven't heard of it. Part of the problem is that the structure of it precludes most of the ways of finding things in world - since the bulk of the endowments are for six months, and they often don't get finished until the last couple of months, they aren't good Destination Guide fodder because of the slow turnover there (though honestly, I think each sim should get some kind of "holding pattern" announcement in the Destination Guide that talks about how it changes every six months to draw more people in).

LEA is a combination of several things - a few sims set aside for various purposes, like Sim 5, which is a sandbox for members, and Sim 7, which is a series of sets for pictures and machinima which began as one of the Six Month Endowments. There are also Sims set up for rotations at various speeds. The slowest is Sim 1, which has yearly exhibits that vary widely. The shortest is Sim 6, which has monthy exhibits that often go by very quickly, but there is sometimes a list of artists available at the University of Western Australia that is updated semi-regularly (UWA is a strong arts supporter that is independent of LEA but I think there are members in common in both organizations). In the middle, but with the most Sims dedicated to it, are the Artist in Residents (AiR) Sims, which artists get for six months. Some of the displays are developed beforehand, others developed over the course of the six months; some sims are open from day one with information available, others are open but little information is available, and still others bar me from their shores. The art styles also vary widely, from creations made mainly outside of Second Life and put together in world, to projects that require the unique environment of Second Life for their life.

My personal favorites are the very emotive ones, and the interactive ones. Having had an artistish relationship with Whiskey Monday and her Single Frame Stories long before she got an LEA sim, I've already done a ton of work there in her everchanging landscape, and I anticipate doing more. There isn't much to interact with in Mistero Hifeng's current LEA sim, but the images are evocative and engaging - reminding me a lot of the graceful-yet-disturbing edges of Rebeca Bashly, which I never seem to pull myself together to photograph even when I'm deeply moved. I'm also terribly fond of Gracie Kendal's works to bring her offline art into an online space and her experiential art about image and property - one of her LEA works was rezzing and deleting everything in her inventory. Often I wish there was better reminder systems, like for the Lost Garden of Sundarya Lahari where I missed the last several months and am still saddened by the loss.

The whole reason I started my LEA Guide was because I was incredibly confused by how it was set up and structured - and even now I will often miss displays, information isn't readily available, and I can't count the number of times I missed getting to see things because I was busy and I had no idea it had opened until after it closed. If an artist has a significant social media presence, what they're doing might get a lot of notice - I'm thinking of Whiskey Monday, here, whose installation has been covered on a lot of blogs though little is available inworld - but often there isn't even basic means of getting information about an artist: they don't have a website, there is no flickr dedicated to pictures, the sim information is empty or perfunctory, and even a search of the web brings up very little. I have significant gaps in my timeline about different sims because I can't find a record elsewhere, and I wish that wasn't so; so many of the artists are really amazing and interesting and I feel like I'm missing something with each opened and closed without easily-found record.

LEA offers an unparalleled scope and access to artists, and I really wish more people knew about it and could go to enjoy it!

( More Sunday Squee here. )

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.