So that was 2021..

So what can I say? Did lots happen? In the real world..well yes and no,depending where in the world you are,but let’s not go there because this blog is about SL. In SecondLife quite a lot certainly did happen.

I thought the easiest way to remind myself was looking through my snapshots and use them to tell the tale, so I’ve used the images from blog posts I made in each month. Occasionally I’ve found portrait or other shots that didn’t make it onto the blog and have included those too.

Click the month names to read the related posts.

January

12th Janauary Portrait

February

My current profile pictuure

March

Engine Room event inspired outfit

April

I dressed as Pross from Blade Runner for SL Book Club

May

June

American Cancer Society Relay Event

July

A cool SciFi outfit I put together for SecondLife Bookclub

August

Lexicutioner. A look inspired by character in a book from the SecondLife BookClub. See post of same name for details.

September

I revamped my Mars Cyberpunk RP character

October

My SecondLife Halloween photo contest entry

November

December

On Patch “Santa” Lindens lap for a photo with the Lindens

As you can see I had quite a busy year in SL during 2021, this small selection of imags really doesn’t do it justice. The highlight point was definitely being an official blogger for Fantasy Faire picking just a few for April was tricky!

Thankyou to all of you that have taken the time and interest to read my ramblings this year, it means a lot to me. I wish you all a happy and safe 2022.

Ava

Dreamz Express

Having recently paid a visit to the Winter Hop n Shop I had a very nice and warm outfit that just called for a wintery location to explore. I saw Dreamz Express on the Destination Guide and it looked perfect.

I arrived on a very busy train platform with lots of passengers apparently awaiting the next train.

The information available said the RP journey takes 2 hours and mentioned ticket prices of L$5oo and L$300 for children. Unfortunately there was no indication of who to pay and when the next train was departing, so I set off on foot. At the end of the platform there is a ski-lift that will take you down to the ground level.

I followed the nearest path through a beautifully festively lit arch way, which just brought me back to the station. So I walked the tracks instead as far as I could before meeting a blocked tunnel. Given not much choice I did what any SL resident would do (right?) and jumped over the rail..

Which turned out to be a very good idea (unlike if you were to do it in RL), there’s lots to see and explore down here so I’d recommend exploring on foot.

While exploring down here I came across a tunnel with some wintery inhabitants.

Rather than disturbing the Noob in the wild I took a side tunnel where I saw a snowborder outside.

Aside from not actually being able to ride a train (at the time of visiting) Dreamz Express is a beautiful and photogenic wintery location to explore alone or with friends. Definitely dress up warm though, the snow is rather blustery!

Arrival point: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dreamz/52/134/50

Outfit Credits:

S&P have a Trinkets machine at the Shop n Hop which is like a gatcha, but you know what you’re buying before you pay, the numbers relate to parts of the outfit.

SecondLife Winter Wonderland 2021

Every year there are masses of events and activities in SecondLife for the Christmas period that run throughout December. One of the regular highlights is the Winter Wonderland that gets built each year by the Linden Moles. Here you’ll find everything you’d expect from such a name, covering 5 regions.

When you first arrive you’re near the snowball fight arena, which is pretty impressive and is the venue for the annual Residents Vs Lindens snowball fight event:

But I wanted to see what else the place had to offer, so I went the other way up some steps through a snow corridor to where the landscape opens out again.

Main attractions are an ice skating rink, ferris wheel to ride, festive village to explore and a large snow race track.

I followed the signs to the Ice Skate area to check that out, if you don’t have your own skates you can get some at the kiosk. Even if you do have skates, the ones here do have a cool optional FX attachment that causes your skates to carve into the ice here.

Onto the other attractions..

Outfit Credits:

This post was featured on the SecondLife Community Blog on 17th December 2021.

Roleplay: Awakening

Ava wakes in darkness. Reaching forward her hand hits the inside of the capsule and the control panel lights up in front of her. She activates the exterior cameras to see where she ended up..Wall, crate,slightly further away wall..and a purple detailed hover bike that can only belong to her friend Vic! She’s in the right ship at least. She mentally catalogs her gear of use. If Vic is on board, tools will be more useful than weapons to her so Ava snags the compact kit that’s standard issue in the capsule along with her weapons; 2 company-issue handguns with spare clips and a tazer, not fatal to a human but in Vics hands very Terminal to bots.

She presses the hatch release of the capsule, there’s a hiss of seals then a clunk and nothing happens. She looks straight up out the capsules window and sighs, the goons have stacked a heavy crate on top of her. Looks like she might need to call the office. She reluctantly activates the capsule emergency beacon then brings up the communications menu on the control panel and starts preparing her report for Head Office.

To AMZ Outreach Office
Situation Report:The resident community in the Hellas Planitia crater have been rounded up by what appeared to be Helix Corp employees. To prevent abduction I secured myself in my NukeSafe capsule, which they appear to have  loaded onto their ship, presumably unaware I was inside. Destination is unknown but likely another Mars location.I have attached the transponder for drone 116 to the transport ship, so AMZ will get the location of the new Helix Corp office, just in case my capsule is offloaded elsewhere.
AMZ lawyers should contact Helix Corp make them aware they are illegally carryig one of our employees. Maybe also remind them that trying to force open my capsule could have fatal consequences for their employees. 

Requisition Order:

Prepare a shiping drone containing the following items and send it on it's way towards Mars ASAP, exact destination co-ordinates to follow.

Drone Control terminal & Workstation
Refresh pack for NukeSafe (power cells, all gas canisters)
Signage pack for new location office
Ammo packs for standard issue side arm
Fill any remaining space with cigarettes in reseller packs (A rare commodity,last shipment presumed lost at Hellas crater)

Message Ends

Ava transmits the report and reactivates stasis mode, all too aware of the time it may take the message to arrive, depending on current location and rotation of plantets. Hopefully there’s an AMZ drone or company craft nearby that will relay the emergency beacon signal faster.

Roleplay: The Roundup

OOC Background: The Hellas Planitia RP location I’ve written about previously has closed and the players are moving to a new place. The new location is being created by former Owners of the Helix City Cyberpunk roleplay, so it’s kinda full circle for the crater residents. This post tells the beginning of Ava’s IC part in the relocation story.

Ava is sitting in her office below the landing pad when she hears the sound of engines of a craft approaching. She brings up the feed from the landing area cameras and sees a personnel transport ship with Helix Corp logos on. They’ve not sent anyone here for a long time, this cannot be good.

A squad of armed personnel for which the best description would be “grunts” emerge from the ship and make their way to the open gates. As they enter the town a second ship arrives, this one more like a prisoner transport that lands right outside the gates. Defiantly not a good thing. Looking around at what weapons she had to hand, tackling them all herself really wasn’t an option; she’s a courier, a weapons courier, but still just that. Thinking fast she goes to one of her shipping drones. She opens the maintenance hatch and removes its tracking transponder and attaches it to part of the landing gear of the prison transport ship, all the grunts are at the other side of the ship facing the towns entrance.

Gathering up her company issue weapons and a few other useful items, putting them in the Nuke-Safe survival capsule, she had been provided with all that time ago when she first came to Mars. Dragging the capsule outside to where it will be seen by the thugs, she climbs in and shuts the hatch, hoping the grunts will be greedy enough to load her capsule into the ship with any other plunder they may take.

She activates the small exterior cameras on the capsule to see what’s going on. Her view isn’t great from this position, but she can see the residents of the crater being herded by force into the transport ship. Will they load her capsule in with the prisoners as loot among other valuable tech some seem to have gone back for? One of them seems to have spotted her capsule so she closes the shutter to prevent them from seeing inside an turns off the exterior status displays. Finally she activates the stasis function, setting it to wake her silently in 72 hours.

Pre-opening post about the new Helix Corp location coming soon!

Angel Manor

I came across Angel Manor by way of a Spotlight article on the SecondLife Community blog and what a treasure it is.

I used the Visit Us page on the website to find my way to a number of different places, starting with the Rose Lounge. The whole place has a wow factor, it feels classy yet relaxed with great attention to detail everywhere.

I explored the other “Rose” related locations on the region, which includes a Theatre and Gallery among other locations such as an Opera House. All looks simply spectacular.

The Angel Manor Region is the centre of a small continent consisting of no less than 12 Regions for you to explore. I paid a visit to both the boating lake and the gardens, which were beautifully relaxing to spend time in.

I would definitely recommend taking the time to visit Angel Manor and the surrounding grounds either on your own or with a friend because the ballrooms and other areas are just enchanting to dance in.

Links:

Outfit Credits:

This post was featured on the SecondLife Community Blog on 29th November 2021.

Pixel Box – Roses

Today I’m showing off an outfit that’s a collection of purchases from Pixel Box the Steampunk clothing and accessories store. I don’t normally write about specific stores (except during Fantasy Faire), but Pixel Box have a great sale on right now. I saw this cool Rose eyepatch and it rightaway gave me the idea of the look I wanted; Steampunk meets Rock Chick.

I originally thought miniskirt and corset to go with the high boots, but then I saw this padded leather dress that just worked perfectly. Each of the items from this outfit were just 75L$ in their store and maketplace Black Friday sale. Everything is discounted right now, most items are 75L$ but there are some larger items (like full outfit sets and vehicles/decor) priced at 99L$, which are still bargain prices!

Outfit Credits:

(Teacup and pose are part of the chair which is from “*Gothic* Living room” set by  Made by .. Houses & Furniture @ Chicco.)

NeoVictoria Photo Contest 2021

The title image here is my entry for the NeoVictoria Photo Contest 2021. It runs until 15th November 2021 and anyone can enter. Just take a Steampunk style snapshot in either of the NeoVictoria Project regions and post it in the Flickr group, then comment on the rules post that you consent to the terms.

The First prize is 5000 L$ so it’s wotrh a quick snap!

Press Release: https://neovictoria.tv/2021/10/07/your-invitation-to-the-neovictoria-2021-photo-contest/

Arrival Point: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/NeoVictoria/18/129/703

NeoVictoria Flickr Group: secure.flickr.com/groups/neovictoria/

Rules post: https://flic.kr/gd/hZrgw
(Which you should read, since you have to comment on it to enter.)

Below a a few more pics with angle or perspective changes that I almost chose:

Outfit Credits:

Photo Location:http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/NeoVictoria/67/174/34

Does Meta Matter?

So Facebook got renamed, or rather the parent company did. Does it matter? There’s been lots of spoof responses in social media about it, from puns on the name to the logo or just the whole concept.

It’s been widely reputed that this is part of his (Evil?) Masterplan to create a “Metaverse” for everyone to connect, work and socialise.

Umm.. HELLO Mr Z…This Already Exists…

When someone says Metaverse to me, I immediately think of SecondLife, Sansar and similar virtual worlds. But to me the term goes beyond those and is very wide ranging, probably encompassing pretty much any digital virtual world or environment.

Zuckerberg wants a piece of it, but whatever he ends up creating or calling it, to me it will just be *part* of the wider Metaverse. Its a concept not a thing you can buy or own, but no doubt he’s trying. It’s not possible to join up all the virtual worlds and spaces out there, a lot of them are technologically walled gardens. Even if it were possible would users want it? You may trust one company (or several) with your Virtual identity (in my case Linden Lab for my SecondLife) but linking all the games, virtual worlds and platforms you might have accounts on through a system run by Mark Zuckerberg? Unlikely. But then there a lot of privacy-careless or privacy-ignorant people out there that just might. Or if it’s the only way they can use their VR headset that he subsidised.

So does it matter? To some it will, others won’t care. I fall into the latter group, but because I don’t care for the privacy invasive business model of FaceBook/Meta doesn’t mean I should ignore it. If the Metaverse as I describe it above was a lake and the various virtual worlds were fish swimming along minding their own business, I’d compare Meta as a shark. It has large financial teeth and has a history of consuming potential competitors(e.g. Oculus among many others).

This analogy may not be as far off the truth as I thought. Since I typed out the above I came across an article published yesterday (30th October 2021) which mentions a 2018 report sent to Facebook board members that says:

“Let’s not build the Metaverse with the plan to help other Platforms accumulate and retain consumers[…] Let’s build the Metaverse to keep them from being in the VR business in a meaningful way at all.”

Sounds very shark-like behaviour to me. Meta will matter, but not I think in the way Zuckerberg wants it to.

Something I would recommend reading is a peice in response to Zuckerbergs announcement entitled “Facebook Meta Isn’t New. The Future Started in 2003” written by a long-time SL resident by the name of Phaylen Fairchild. Which I think any SL Resident would agree with.

Halloween 2021: Different perspectives but all fun!

Halloween is a special time of year, for different reasons for different people. For some it is a deeply religious time when rituals are performed formally or informally to honour the dead and rememer lost loved ones. You can find legimate Wiccan/Pagan organisations in SecondLife that perform these ceremonies.  The opposite extreme is the very Westernised version of the holiday that is a retail exercise featuring lots of black,orange and kids dresing up to get sweets.

Wherever you feel you fit on that range doesn’t really matter in SL. You can go to the rituals, the parties, the shopping, it doesn’t really matter so log as you’re enjoying yourself.

The common theme through it all is the costumes! Whether you go for playful cute witch, some kind of monster or in my case dark creepy vampire, it’s all such fun!

There’s not much in terms of skin coverage in this outfit, but that’s kind of the idea for a vampire on the hunt. Too much clothing would just get in the way and soak up any spillage that could be drunk! The cloak is definitely a requirement though, it lets me wrap up and disappear into the shadows quickly away from witnesses!

Photo Location: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Pine%20Valley%20Resort/249/28/26

Credits: