Mephiliskos, We Barely Knew You.

Today we are closing Mephiliskos' parcel on the Seoraksan sim. Even though the land was a *very* good deal, and I am very proud of the builds we made on such an awkward bit of land, the idea was to keep it as long as we could sustain it out of pocket.

We can not sustain it out of pocket, The gentleman who owns the land was very kind in accommodating us several times, as we needed more time to come up with rent money. But this time, already four days in arrears and no resources, he deserves to have his land to rent to someone else.

I could give you all the sob stories (i.e. Moving costs set us back, we had to purchase appliances, They moved my husband's pay schedule to once a month), but I want them to be circumstances rather than sob stories.

Parcel/Sim/Land management is not something we are prepared to do. I think all of our residents have homes elsewhere, and places they can go. So I don't think anyone is left high and dry.

As for my Second Life activity... I expect it to increase now that things are calming down for us some. However, since Korinna, and her children's identity were *so* entwined with Mephiliskos, that putting Mephiliskos in Semi-retirement, means that those characters are also in Semi-retirement. It is one part emotional attatchment (it was her home.) and another part Storyline (She's a Dryad, bound to a tree, she can't keep moving it.)

When I am on as Korinna, it will be to build. You can drop me a line of you like, but I may not get back to you right away.

Keeping the Group open if people want to Text RP. Will open the group so anyone can do group announcements for RP reasons, or whatever.

I may be seeking RP opportunities on other sims at some point, with other avatars. Even though there are so few that accommodate a European/United Kingdom time zones. We'll just see what the future holds.

The Vicious Texture Cycle.

Spendin' some time today working on the tree village. Not that you could tell by looking at it, considering that I have been working on some new ideas in the sky. I am pretty much satisfied with a proto-type for a new building shape I want.

But damn it, it is always the textures that hang me up. I have a lot of textures. I have spent more money on textures than I really want to think about over the years I have been in Second Life. I end up using a very big handful or two of good reliable textures (I think every builder does, or so I have observed) But damned if you don't get a new project, and nothing you have works.

I would really like for the Tree Buildings to match, but all be a little different. From interiors to exteriors, because why wouldn't they be? But to keep it from looking like a train wreck, I have to be careful to make sure everything co-ordinates. This is no small task.

I have a growing list of uses for the various buildings. For instance, I want to build a Tavern, and have a little infirmary. Places for trades people, and of course, places designated for homes. The smallest building nearest the dock is destined to be a fish monger (at least, I think. I could change my mind.)

There is one thing I am growing very irritated with, and that is Foliage. The foliage that comes with the tree houses we have used as a base, is your basic, 1- prim plant sculpty. Not that there is anything wrong with it, but when you get it in Megaprim form, It intersects objects, and makes it hard to touch things that need touching. Like doors. Re-sizing and repositioning these HUGE prims tends to leave the tree looking awkward, and the buildings over exposed. I really want the tree village to be un-obscured while you are in it, but fairly well hidden when you are on the outside of it, with a few rooftops and structures peaking out here and there.

Also, by un-linking and moving all the foliage so I could build, I more or less lost the ability to control the textures in the trees. It kind of defeats the purpose.

So I am not sure what to do about all of that. I do know that I think the foliage that came with the tree is needlessly primy., but I may find that I have to re-rez them in their original form and add them back to trees after the building is done, in hopes I can make it work. But before I can get rid of all of the foliage, I have to get those buildings perfect.

Which brings me back to textures. A vicious cycle.

Limbo

Even though I still check my mail daily, I have not been in world for days. I hate to admit that the reason is probably because I ran out of lindens, when some building projects got stuck. Sad, because those are the things I log in for now? Where are those days when I logged in, in the morning, with a sense of purpose? And again in the evening to reap the benefits of a simple, but sweet, social life and RP life?

I find myself asking, if those days are gone, and have been since January 29th, 2012.

Even though I have land (which I intend to keep) and (we) have put a lot of work into putting an RP worthy space up there, I am feeling numb about it right now. I have no intentions of getting rid of my land, or taking down the build.

But lets face it, the only thing that is there right now, is that build, and probably some confused people. I am not "physically" present, but I am also not present mentally or emotionally.

I am starting to wonder if I just need Asterinissa (what was formerly known as The Seven Isles) to "exist" even if I can't seem to make it live.

On a personal level, It's not a lot of fun, anymore. I love my friends, and enjoyed their company so much I couldn't let go. But so much of that doesn't exist in world for me, so the rewards I felt are non-existent.

Things (in world) are pretty lonely now. I still love Second life and do not intend to leave. But I just don't know if I can run a decent RP on my own. I have to be delighted by it, and inspired by it.

It has been hard to let go. All the work, and creation, and such, it is so precious to me. But where is my inspiration, and my passion? Is it going to come back?

I don't know. In the meantime, I will keep the land and see if it does.

Of Skin and Trees

When I am depressed, or stressed I either build, forgo logging in, or build avatars just for the sake of building avatars.

This time I am doing a mixture of the three, so the Tree village is going slowly.

And I have been distracted by some avatar building. I've not opened any new accounts, I am just using somewhat neglected alts to try and build 3-d versions of the people that live in my head. (most of whom have never seen the inside of Second life. You see, after years of role-playing, and being a lapsed writer, I have many people I love in my imagination. There is something rewarding about watching them move.

I was pretty successful in making a beloved Argyria-stricken Mountain Elf of my husband's. Said husband then asked if I was going to do his counterpart.

So I thought I would give it a go, and I have learned a few things on the way.

1) I only use two basic skins for my female and child avatars. (one is a template I can make my own from. The other, an awesome group gift.)
2) Most of those skins (that I make) look quite different, as I put them on differing faces. The templates allow for a lot of tinkering and results. However...
3) Those skins are starting to look to much alike.

You see the character I am now trying to build bears just enough similarities to Korinna, (being that they are both female.) that my template made skins look too much like Korrinna to work. No matter what I do to them, when I put them on this girl's face (she has an entirely different face structure on the sliders) she looks too much like Korinna to be individual.

It is very frustrating. I hate the skin shuffle, once I got Korinna's skin down perfectly, I was majorly relieved. People who used to actually read this blog must have been relieved too, because it was all I bitched about.

Which leads me to something else I have learned.

4) While it used to be the other way around, finding skins for females is WAY harder than it is for males.

Do you know why? The products for males caught up just enough that the stores and creators are well known. Most male skins are high quality, realistic skins.

But the female skin market has become so saturated, it's hard to know where to start. And the usual cliche's apply. Loads and loads of makeup, big faking looking bewbies, and lips that are bigger than the bewbies.

I'm really stumped as to what to do, especially since I don't really want to spend any money, and the one skin mall I knew of that had good mania boards has gone the way of many sims... offline.

Anyway, back to the tree village project.

Husband is working hard on making a lift, I have some textures that need making, and to re-texture every poorly textured house. I have neighbors across route 9 now, that also have a tree house. Theirs is better... for now. ::rubs hands together:: I have far more buildings than I shall ever need, but if I want it to look village-y I think I have to keep them.

But in terms of progress, I had a beautiful pirate move a beautiful ship into my little bay, which is a serious boon! I have a zip line to purchase, and many roofs to make. It is coming along, but very slowly. This morning I will head in for a little bit to try and work out some of the issues.

One thing I dread, is I have to take all of the foliage off the tree houses in order to build for now, which is the opposite of what I *wanted* to do. But, there is no way to work around them. After that I will have to replace the foliage a piece at a time. Hopefully this will be a way to reduce prims, I just hope I can do it realistically.

zomg

My dream tree village is real!

6 Fictional Places You Won't Believe Actually Exist

Where's my passport?!

Giddy

Giddy is the only word to describe how I feel at this very moment.

After rambling on and on, I decided to give myself permission to go ahead and do a tree village build. I have enough prims, why the fuck not? While it is far from finished (it has barely begun!) I have had my first taste of that tree village of my dreams, and it feels so good. Not only that, as I tried to ambulate through the foliage and platforms of the prefab Oiolairë Tree House I am modifying for the village, I got lost and disoriented.

Exactly what a new comer should feel! What a giddy feeling. Like stepping into your best dreams and getting lost in them.

The road and the under water tunnel look a little silly, but I don't care.

At the moment, nothing is connected, everything is a mess of miss textured prims and wonky trees. But all that will change, and I want to do it as close to how my tree dwellers would have done it themselves.

I reckon, that buildings would be placed in the most suitable location of the tree for adequate support of the structure. The Oiolairë Tree Home (which Eaken purchased nearly three years ago) already does that for me. So by rezing multiple trees, scattering them around, and rotating them, that much is provided for me.

However, this does not make for neat little rows of suburban cookie cutter buildings. (and who would want that anyway?) Thus, bridges and lifts would be put in to accommodate the houses, not the other way around. Making for the feeling of winding paths high in the sky.

Tree dwellers, loving their trees very much would want to save as much of it as possible... so the foliage would only be removed as needed to clear the walk ways and the homes.

So in essence, I am rezing tree houses, building bridges to connect them, and picking out the plant prims and moving them to where I need them to be.

One thing I am surprised with (so far) is that the trees provide a pretty good privacy screen on their own. They will of course, be aided by more landscaping on the ground to help hide the uglyness of mainland, but that alone is a boon I had not expected!

Perhaps, if this all goes well, I shall also be able to use my tiny bay of water. Water on the Mainland is hard to come by. I am lucky to have it, how grand would a majestic ship look next to a tree village? Pretty fucking grand. I know people with majestic ships, but whether or not they want them on the mainland, I do not know.

My inspiration for laying out the trees, was the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.





Because a build like this could only be better with some Esoteric elements. Unfortunately, I found that I would need a much larger piece of land and more prims to do that well, so I made a template of the Tree of Life, and used it as a rough guide for placing trees and future platforms. Even though it is not my initial plan, it has served me well so far.

For you tread on my dreams...

Ever since my husband described a special town during a D&D game, I have been in love with the images it left in my mind. Soon, this place became the birthplaces of nearly all of my D&D characters.

It was an elven tree village. The concept of an Elven Tree village is not a unique one, from it's beginnings in modern fantasy fiction in Lothlórien, to the cliché it has become in many Fantasy stories. However, one could say that humans in cottages is a little cliché too. So why shouldn't elves live in trees as a stereotype?

There is something about this elven tree village that is close to my heart though. In my early days of Second Life, before I settled in the sim that would become my home, I had a little dream of building a tree village on a parcel. Not just a tree house, but a full tree village. We had a tree house for a while, and I loved it but it also stuck out like a sore thumb in the sim we lived on, and as many people pointed out, Centaurs don't climb trees. I always wanted to put Tree houses in TSI, but there really wasn't a good place to put any of them except in Skyboxes. A few people did enjoy renting them. But when it comes to RP housing most people want to be on the ground level, where the action is. Skyboxes are for people who seek solitude.

I thought of putting tree houses in the new RP skybox of odd proportions (that yes, I am still waiting to reveal to the world. I'm busy these days.) but they couldn't be very high with our enclosed ceilings.

But, I do have this hunk of land on the ground just sitting there doing nothing. And I have some prims to burn. Sure, it's also mainland, and one of my neighbours is a big ugly mall in a big ugly box you could not miss if you tried. There is a modern road beside the parcel with tanks, cars, and hover craft that drive over it all day long. Not exactly in tune with the theme of a remote elven tree village.

But even if I never used it for anything, I think maybe I would like to build that tree village anyway. Just so I can fulfill that little dream. I am a capable builder now. The difference between now and then is I can actually do it. So why Shouldn't I?

Truth be told, I don't like the majority of elves in Second Life. My philosophy on elves is, that age brings maturity and mental and spiritual growth. Maturity brings acceptance, and love, and humility to those who posess it. Thus, the lofty, effete nature of most elves (particularly the ones in second life) don't make sense to me. How is it in touch with nature to think you are better than someone, or never be willing to get your dress dirty?

I like my own elves. Humble, wise, tribal, good humored and skilled. So given the reasons I dislike most elves in Second Life, perhaps it is best that I should have a quiet, undisturbed place to think of my own.

And I can have the other sim setting too. I don't see the point in having a cake if you are not going to eat it.

There's No Place Like Home.

So that other thing I was going to get to.

Why, when we can only afford a 64 x 256 metre of mainland, would we want to continue. When everyone (who belonged and RPed in more than one sim) had a place to go, why would we even bother trying to keep the dream alive?

I have asked myself this a lot. The only thing I did know is I felt a nasty gap in the place my Second Life once was. While everyone else was moving on, I had never felt so alone in-world. You would think I would log out and do something else. But when something has been part of your daily life for so long, it isn't so easy to do. Home is a complicated issue for me in both on and off the Grid, and I admit that this is factoring heavily into my real life at the moment.

So I went looking, at all the many fantasy sims that I could find. (Fantasy is the only thing I am interested in when it comes to Second Life) I found plenty of good RP sims, maybe a couple where we could fit. Either with alts or with seriously modified story lines.

But the reasons I couldn't settle was more than my snobbish frowning upon sims with furry and child avatar hatred. The reality is, I don't have any alts so crucial to my happiness that I could depend on them solely. And editing people out of our main's joint storylines was sort of like erasing parts of their own character's core personalities. Basically, making them different characters.

I don't think it is a secret that the conception of The Seven Isles and it's vision predated me, nor was the philosophy of family and acceptance my own. Except I knew when I found it I had found home. Because I knew when I found it, that this is what I would do, if I were to start a community in Second Life. You could say, that is why I joined up on staff when the opportunity was offered to me. The Seven Isles wasn't just the perfect sim, it was practically my real life dreams of Utopia.

A simple life, something no one has in the real world. Epicurus called it Ataraxia. Ataraxia is very important to me in my personal life as well. I have mentioned before that RP was my Ataraxia.

What I have learned is that out of all of these good RP sims, We actually did provide something unique. No classes, no cliques, no guilds or factions. Instead we had equality, families and trades that helped us express and celebrate our individuality. I have always known that we were never a big and as bad ass as a lot of these other sims, I never really wanted to be.

Uniqueness is not what people usually want, no matter what they say. People want familiarity and mainstream for a reason. One knows what to do and what to expect in those situations, and that is understandable. People like structure and leadership. But for me, those are "chains" in a way. there is a Jim Morrison quote that sums it up for me,

"People are terrified to be set free – they hold on to their chains. They fight anyone who tries to break those chains. It's their security"

What he is saying here, is people can not always feel safe enough to do something with out some firm parameters. Perhaps that is why our community in itself, was unique people without parameters. I can not speak for anyone else but myself, but this is why I felt so lost.

So I guess you could say, our very humble (and perhaps doomed) desire to rise from the ashes are for selfish reasons. However knowing that we had something that others did not, I can not help but think there are others out there seeking what we had. Perhaps it *is* a minority (and Gods know lower numbers don't pay the bills) but I think it is a minority worth at least trying keeping alive.

I just need a world where things made in imagination are flesh. I need a world where children play and explore. I need a place of growth, and intrigue, and peace. If I want to beat the shit out of something I'll play Dungeon Siege

What's new with me?

In reviewing my last post, I realise that there are a number of items that deserve updates.

I am no longer at my adorable little Mainland parcel I wrote about before.  Instead, Eacen and I have secured a much bigger parcel, with more prims, just down the road. What are we going to use it for?  Why, RP of course!

It is no small challenge, however, to build a space suitable for RP with friends in a skybox.  It takes forever to rez all those scultpies.  And if your draw distance is set below 256, all of our smoke and mirror tricks become glaringly obvious.  Mind you, we could build on the actual land below... but being next to a modern road, and most of it being submerged under water is even more awkward than a skybox.

Working on this much more humble project (yet to be announced) is not the only thing I have been up to. As you probably know I have a Second Life Toddler (who I alt. A challenging but drama free way to SL parenting).  Her name is Kraneia Taurus, though her nick name is twig, since she too, is an Epimeliad. I have always done the best I could with her, with limited options in Second Life.  Most prim babies wouldn't work for something that needed custom body parts and clothing. I went through a lot of work and lindens to make her prim baby as acceptable as possible.  But, when it came time for her to be less script-y and inanimate... I put her in a tiny avatar.

Beautiful in her own way,  but Tiny avatars have a lot of limitations.  Crunching an avatar into a bunch of sculpted prims, and then trying to animate is a nightmare.

But now, thanks to mesh, and the wonderful Yabusuka Baby Avatar I "Got myself a crying, talking, sleeping, walking, living doll"

I am truly sorry for the terrible song quote. Thankful, these wonderful baby avatars that allow for (almost) regular animations, and proper proportions and moving parts. It's also mod so I was able to do something that I love to do; customize the hell out of her.  I'll let the final product speak for itself.

I made her skin so she has a good family resemblance, and she gets curly hair like her mama.  She gets to wear real Greek-inspired clothes. The only way this could be more perfect was if Radegast (the program I use to double log my child avs) supported mesh. There is no logical reason for a text based viewer to support mesh.  I just never realised that the viewer you log in with is as important as the one you view through.  I suppose both have to be enabled. (It's still a great program, and useful for when I need Alekos to tag along.) I need to find a second lo-resource-using mesh enabled viewer if I am to double log.  I have a good computer, but it just doesn't handle two instances of Phoenix at the same time.

So anyway, that is what I have been up to the past few weeks. I have more I would like to discuss, but I think this post is long enough.

The Elephant in the Room.

Before I can use this blog for anything else, I suppose there is an issue that needs addressing.

On January 29th, 2012 We made the very difficult decision to close the Seven Isles. It wasn't something we wanted to do, especially not the way it was done.  But we felt as if there was no other choice.  It is a long story, if asked in world I will give it to you, but I don't feel like going in to it here.

It's been just over two months since, why haven't I talked about it yet?  I wasn't ready to, I guess.  I spent some time and energy trying to maintain some form of it, but that didn't work out.  It might have done, but Real Life has been harsh to my family. We are barely getting by, and if it were not for in world services, and favours (such as Eaken's DJing) We'd have no in-world income at all. We don't have much, certainly not one to start a new sim.

Though for now I am able to afford a cute little parcel on the mainland, 300 prims for 300 lindens a week is a hell of a deal,  Just enough prims for building, and since it is on "forgotten" mainland there is no lag!

Besides, Where else can you find automated tanks and ice cream trucks in a neighbourhood, if not on the mainland?

This is by no means what I consider home in the Role-play sense, though.  I don't really know what to do. A huge part of me is relieved to be free of the financial stress that came from running the sim. There is a part of me that just wants to find somewhere else suitable to live out our RP days in peace.  Eaken and I have alts that can find RP, but my little fake family means a lot to me, more than I ever realized until the place we could be was gone.

So, I am on the search for somewhere to rest our branches and hooves. So far I can only search groups, since out internet connection here at our new RL home (which is temporary, thank gods) is *terrible* but I am so discouraged at the amount of innocuous sims that do not allow youth avatars, or furries.

What should stop me from resettling in a place where furries are not allowed?  Call me a snob if you wish, but I have always judged the quality of a sim based on Furry discrimination. A lot of people say theme has something to do with it, but I don't see how a Furry dressed in theme is any different from a Centaur dressed in theme. In fact, there isn't much of a difference between the appearance of mythological creatures from furries. I don't understand why one is acceptable, and one is not. It's fantasy, we're supposed to use our imaginations.

But I digress, my point is, the perfect place for me to call home, *was* the Seven Isles.

Both in Second Life and Real life finding a new home is tough.  I don't really have a place to fit in and settle in world, and our current home, well, we don't fit in much here either.  That doesn't stop us for looking for the right place in both worlds, though.

People ask us a lot if we ever plan to open another sim.  There is such a huge part of me that wants to, to let the stories, the atmosphere and the community to live on.  But I have to be honest, there is a part of me that never wants to stress again about those issues again. I did it because I loved it, but I must certainly did not thrive on it.

So my answer is, I don't know.  I would like to think of that world just being on pause. The things that went on there are still going on in spirit, just as they were.  It's just like that tree in the forest, no one  is "there" to hear it, but it is still making noise, with the sounds of life carrying on as usual.