HAH!

KNOW MY WRATH, O THOU MY LORD!

[19:05] Stiv Kaczmarek is Online
[19:05] Emilly Orr narrows both eyes at you
[19:06] Stiv Kaczmarek is Offline

HAH! HAHAHAHAHA!

MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

*coughs*

Now, then, what was I doing...oh, right. Town meeting coming up in Steelhead. I should change.

Is it sad that I really like this image? (Click on the pic for the full one, which, if you've been to the main site, you've seen.) I mean, at least it has a little personality. They know the Mongols are at the gate, battering it down, and they're trying to use humor to defuse the situation.

I don't know, I'm less angry--I mean, if it is a system-wide grid attack, really, what are they supposed to do? New Roma wasn't built in a day, after all--than I am resigned. So many folks now are talking about finding new worlds to discover. But I'd miss this one, deeply. I'd miss Caledon. I'd miss Steelhead. Hells, I'd miss Rivula.

Still...it's telling that for this series of "world outages", the main reaction is seeing if there's another game in town, so to speak, rather than worry over what's happened to the grid. When the big replicator attacks happened last fall and winter, no one jumped up and said, hey, let's go see what's going on in Kaneva! Hey, is Outback Online open for testing yet? What about Active Worlds? Is the Manor better than it sounds?

Is SL dying? Maybe. Am I willing to jump ship now, though? Of course not. I'd miss...everything...far too much.

It's just disheartening, right now, to hear so many voices speaking of leaving...and now this.

Maybe it's just another grid attack, and we'll be up and functional in no time. I do hope so.

Sometimes, being a religious person is not healthy.

[23:12] Emilly Orr: *pokes*
[23:12] Stiv Kaczmarek: HEY
[23:12] Stiv Kaczmarek: puts down knife
[23:12] Stiv Kaczmarek: How are you?
[23:13] Emilly Orr's eyes raise, staring at the knife
[23:13] Emilly Orr backs slowly away
[23:13] Stiv Kaczmarek: oh, no
[23:13] Stiv Kaczmarek: he's
[23:13] Stiv Kaczmarek: sleepin'
[23:13] Emilly Orr: Oh, just...fine, my Lord, I shall leave you to your...um...work...
[23:13] Stiv Kaczmarek: What's goin' on?
[23:13] Emilly Orr nods and looks for the exit
[23:13] Emilly Orr: Not much, not much, just, y'know, hanging at the old same place, which has changed again
[23:14] Stiv Kaczmarek: ???
[23:14] Emilly Orr: Mah place?
[23:14] Stiv Kaczmarek: Oh oh oh
[23:14] Stiv Kaczmarek: Oh I have sound
[23:14] Stiv Kaczmarek: er
[23:14] Stiv Kaczmarek: voice
[23:14] Stiv Kaczmarek: and yet, no mic
[23:15] Emilly Orr: Hmm, that's my problem
[23:15] Stiv Kaczmarek: Yeah yeah
[23:15] Stiv Kaczmarek: all these women talking
[23:15] Stiv Kaczmarek: me, silent and weeping
[23:15] Emilly Orr: Awww
[23:15] Stiv Kaczmarek: SPEAKING TO THE MONITOR
[23:15] Emilly Orr: God has angst
[23:15] Stiv Kaczmarek: That too
[23:16] Emilly Orr: Wau, that's just...sad. Not, um, sad PATHETIC, sad, I mean...sad, sad, woeful...sad...
[23:16] Emilly Orr searches faster for the exit
[23:16] Stiv Kaczmarek: RAAAARGH
[23:17] Emilly Orr: Ahhhhh...
[23:17] Stiv Kaczmarek: stabs homeless guy more
[23:17] Emilly Orr: NOOOO
[23:17] Stiv Kaczmarek: HEHEHEHAHHAHAHHA
[23:17] Emilly Orr dives for the window
[23:17] Emilly Orr stops at the windowsill
[23:17] Emilly Orr: Wait
[23:17] Emilly Orr: Why, exactly, am I threatened here?
[23:17] Emilly Orr: I mean, I'll just heal, you stab me
[23:17] Emilly Orr: I do that
[23:18] Stiv Kaczmarek: Oh
[23:18] Stiv Kaczmarek: STABS YOU IN THE EYE
[23:18] Stiv Kaczmarek: sooo
[23:18] Emilly Orr: AAAAAAAAH
[23:18] Stiv Kaczmarek: hows that workin'?
[23:18] Stiv Kaczmarek: Oh OH SORRY!
[23:18] Emilly Orr: DAMN YOU, I JUST REGREW THAT FROM WHEN CELL STABBED ME IN THE EYE
[23:18] Stiv Kaczmarek: YOU SAID IT'D HEAL
[23:18] Emilly Orr: IT WILL
[23:18] Emilly Orr: OWWWW
[23:18] Stiv Kaczmarek: GOD SORRY
[23:18] Stiv Kaczmarek: SORRY!
[23:19] Emilly Orr: I didn't say it wouldn't HURT
[23:19] Stiv Kaczmarek: well
[23:19] Stiv Kaczmarek: I mean
[23:19] Stiv Kaczmarek: had to try
[23:19] Emilly Orr: Try WHAT?
[23:20] Emilly Orr: Injure your angel? What kind of a sadistic deity DOES that?
[23:20] Stiv Kaczmarek: ME
[23:20] Stiv Kaczmarek: DUUUUUR
[23:20] Emilly Orr: ....oh, right, forgot
[23:21] Stiv Kaczmarek: well uh
[23:21] Stiv Kaczmarek: good luck
[23:21] Stiv Kaczmarek: with that
[23:21] Stiv Kaczmarek: knife
[23:21] Stiv Kaczmarek: you can have it, if you want
[23:22] Emilly Orr: errrr....
[23:22] Emilly Orr: Where, exactly, did you...want me to have it?
[23:22] Stiv Kaczmarek: oh you can pull it out
[23:22] Emilly Orr: AAAAAAAH
[23:23] Stiv Kaczmarek: O GOD
[23:23] Stiv Kaczmarek: SORRY
[23:23] Emilly Orr: *schluck*
[23:23] Emilly Orr stares at the dripping knife
[23:23] Emilly Orr looks up with her one remaining red eye
[23:23] Emilly Orr: Oh, Stiiiiiv....
[23:23] Stiv Kaczmarek: so
[23:23] Stiv Kaczmarek: sorry
[23:24] Stiv Kaczmarek: ...
[23:24] Stiv Kaczmarek: stabs you in the EYE again
[23:24] Stiv Kaczmarek: HAHAHHAH
[23:24] Stiv Kaczmarek: er
[23:24] Stiv Kaczmarek: wait
[23:24] Emilly Orr: AAAAAAAH
[23:24] Stiv Kaczmarek: SORRY!
[23:24] Emilly Orr: Where'd you--you had TWO KNIVES?!?
[23:24] Stiv Kaczmarek: I WAS WORKING
[23:25] Emilly Orr: GOD IS A BASTARD
[23:25] Emilly Orr: GOD IS SO GETTING EVIL KITTEN CUTENESS
[23:25] Emilly Orr: OR GRANDMA SEX
[23:25] Emilly Orr: I SWEAR TO STIV
[23:25] Stiv Kaczmarek: hee
[23:26] Emilly Orr: *schluck*
[23:26] Emilly Orr stares at the knife in her other hand
[23:26] Stiv Kaczmarek: um
[23:26] Emilly Orr: You are SO lucky there's no direct brain impairment
[23:26] Stiv Kaczmarek: see you!
[23:26] Stiv Kaczmarek: runs off
[23:26] Stiv Kaczmarek: with sack of knives
[23:26] Emilly Orr: ARRRRGH

I'm tellin' you. Were it not for the benefits, I'd so change faiths.

...Wait. THERE ARE NO BENEFITS! DAMN it!

Adventures in grid malfunction. This was mind-boggling.

I crashed from Lumindor. All right, annoying, clear my cache, reconnect with the world...



...save I didn't. This is Linden Village Plot 14, in Longfellow. This is profoundly not where I was. The lass in white silks was quite distressed, by the way--apparently she had a tag over her head reading This girl not to be found without Master...and apparently "Master" had gone to a different infohub...

I cleared cache, fell off the grid, crawled back in again. Tried directly accessing Lumindor...



...found myself in the Hyles Swamp Infohub. Oh, joy. This was a pic snapped on the fly, thus resulting in the lack of color, and the many grey residents. But they kept showing up, two, four, six at a time...I thought it best to leave.

I tried my chosen destination again...



...and found myself on Orientation Island Public. Okay, this was getting amusing. Note the girl in the gridded purple skin. I snapped the pic, but I still don't know if that was a visual glitch, or if that really was her skin.

Okay. Gosh, this is entertaining, in that indescribably boring sense. Where to next?



Apparently, Pooley Stage, a public performance venue I've never heard of. And the talk was very, very dull...so we're moving on. Next on the cavalcade of infohubs, is....



Hanja Infohub! Hanja, my old friend. Still have no idea why, but whenever Rivula crashes, I end up in Hanja. Seems a nice place, never really explored it. Lovely tile work.

Anyway, I was still trying to reach Lumindor...



And ended up in Braunsworth. I remember Braunsworth, too. Braunsworth was where I went the day Lindens rained from the sky during a grid crash. Very, very odd day that was...

...finally, I gave up, and decided on a new location. I was able to access the rest of the grid. But the weirdness didn't stop there:



This is Valruna. More to the point, this is the gypsy camp in Valruna, declared neutral territory, sanctuary space for all factions. Note the absence of gypsies. In fact, note the absence of camp.

See, the powers that own and manage Valruna have decided to make it urban, and it's pretty much going to be--medieval one day, urban a week later, everyone revise your characters thankyew--which is going to hurt my head as an RPer. I tried to talk them into evolving the sim as a roleplay event. No go. They won't consider it. So it'll just be...different, one day, and...I don't like modern game spaces, I just don't.

So...back to Lumindor it may be.

...whenever it comes back up, grmblemumblegrrr...and let's hope it drags with it an accessible Linden balance, a working friendslist, profiles that can be read and changed, the abiity to rez out objects without losing them, the ability to build...*shakes her head*

((RP MODE) you know what to do, he says, you know what to ask, and I do not, I do not, I know only hunger, I know only pain, breath like knives through my lungs and all my nerves burning-- He tells me I know this answer, he tells me I know how to summon, one demon to another. I shake my head. He summons his daughter to show me how easy it is. He tells her to teach me, and departs into flame and mist. and I shake, I tremble, I shatter, shredding my pride to red ribbons, all to ask her for her help--help I need, desperately need, but cannot seem to ask for on my own-- She asks who I seek. I tell her the demon within the lad from the East. She sneers, curling her lip back. "The incubus?" she says, her expression incredulous. Aye, yes. The incubus, indeed. She shakes her head at me. please oh gods please, spirits and elements please, everything, anything I revere, please give me the strength to survive the day-- She asks for the vial from around my neck, the demon's daughter--white-haired and cynical, the daughter of a far different house. She holds out her hand and asks for mine. and what is it she wants then, the blood I could drink but why bother, the enchantments nearly gone, the bauble itself? But why, but why-- She asks for my hand, and draws out a long metal pin, scoring it across my fingertips. She drops the blood it gathers into the vial, mixing old with new, nodding, and recapping it. She clasps it tight, closing her eyes. my hand smarts but I let her hold it, surrounded by the stone of the keep that never rose near trees, smell of spider venom heavy on the air, along with fainter scents of old blood and pain, and where am I, where am I, why did I agree to come here-- She chants, the language one I've never heard, the sounds more ripped out of her living throat than spoken. I shudder, hearing them. They seem to paint the very air with hatred, with rage, with dissatisfied need. my hand starts to burn and throb and the liquid in the vial glows red, vibrant, like rubies cut from living rock, like liquid jewels, like fresh raw wounds and I want to start screaming-- And she calls his name. The name of the demon within. And the lad from the Eastern lands appears. I rush into his arms, filling my senses with him, touch and scent, taste and hearing, sight rushing in over all, and I'm drunk with him, dizzy, and barely paying attention to anything else said. but she says, she says, I do not understand but she says, 'binding', and she says, 'bound' and she says, she says, 'to each other', and, and, I do not, I do not understand-- "Wait," I say. "What...precisely...do you mean by 'bound'? And she tells me. She has somehow enchanted the lad's blood, mine, and the remaining essence within us both, so that we will be bloodbound to serve each others' cause. And Lilit speaks sardonic, amused words with my throat, smiles with my mouth, and the peals of her discordant laughter ring loud and long in the room. Oh, my succubus quite enjoys this idea. Bound to the demon, for...ever, mayhap, or at least for a very long time. "Is there no way...?" I ask. She turns back. "Yes," she says. "When you die. So will the incubus." and he looks at me he looks at me he LOOKS AT ME and this is, none of this is, MY FAULT-- Oh, great. Here we go again. The Raven? He is going to kill me...

((RP MODE))

She shakes, swallows, clawing ragged nails down the headstone in front of her. Her glowing eyes flick from the dying tree, to the cliff's edge, and back again. It's becoming difficult to move. Difficult to breathe.



Where is he? Where is he?? He said he'd never leave me, he said...he said...and I can't find him, I can't...I've looked, and...I'm so tired.



She shudders, falling to the side, pressing close to the cool grass, inhaling, shuddering, all her muscles clenched. Two days in, being past that point of needing to feed from him, feed the addiction he's given her, the demon in him's given her, and...nothing eases this hunger, nothing but...him.

And he is not here.

It's easier lower to the ground, but the ground here is tired...still, no one comes here, not even him, and...it's so quiet. I can barely hear the other lives in the land, everything's quiet, and still, and only the faint wails of the dead distract me at all.

She wraps her arms around her torso, clenched and shuddering around the hunger that seems larger than she is. Becoming the succubus wasn't this bad. Being addicted to him before wasn't this bad. This is...everything, this is...alteration, this is...too much.



Drinking of him, did I think it would have no consequences? He's already changed my genetic code, and how was that possible, how did I even think to guard against that eventuality? Nothing has been able to change my changeability, no life in the womb that shifts, no stability in the shifting bones...not for me.

But he did, the demon within the boy, he found a way...oh, I hide them, those...extensions of me...everywhere, or nearly. But I have them. I know they're there. And they carry through, form to form. Lucky me...



Her hand is trembling but keeps seeking out the heavy glass vial around her neck. The boy gave it to her a fortnight past, said it was his blood, the energies of his demon within, bound in place, to keep her when he could not be there. She thinks he was thinking of, one day, two days, and he would get a chance to refresh it...but he's been gone four, now, and she's been draining off the energies trapped behind the glass. Little sips, now and again, just enough to keep her going...but now, it's very nearly inert matter, and there's barely any of the demon's energy left. Nothing to sustain her. Nothing.



It's no good even going through the village, seeing who's about...oh, I can hide the shaking hands, the new gaunt face, I can hide the desperation in my eyes, make my voice pleasing...these are tricks of the Sidhe ancient of days, and though I'm not their caliber, I can still cast glamour.

But it won't help. I don't want them, mortals to feed the succubus side, sex and adrenalin and their small little lives to feed my fire. I need a taste of the demonic, cable-thick dark energy, moving through me, moving in me, not slender little threads of human life. I want...

I want...

...him...



She swallows, keening on the night air, fog rising around her, sinking down...the ghosts of the dead crowd around and she's unable to push them back far, they're drawn by weakness. She waves her hands, then looks at them, trembling as she holds them out, and shakes her head.

How could I have been such a fool...how could I possibly have believed him...lad or not, human or not, he's human no longer, not since the demon moved in...All that sweetness, all that gentle nature, it's all a front for the demon's wiles, and I have been well and truly trapped...

She stands, shaking, rising to her feet, hiding the tendrils with effort, stretching against the cold stone of yet another grave...it hurts, everything hurts, and no one to ease the hurt, and where is her Raven, how could even he abandon her like this...



And no one to hold me, even hold me, and nothing to do but live with this sharp ache, and I'm not strong enough, I'm not, I cannot do this...

She kneels, breathing in the night air, trying to compose herself. She can wait. She's learned on waiting. Waiting for her wandering Queen, waiting for her Raven love, waiting for...him. She can wait longer.

While the knives tear her belly and her shoulders shake and her hands tremble and her eyes drip with red-tinged tears...

But she can wait. She will wait. It's all she can do now.



It's all I have left...and nothing left of me, soon...just empty echoing space and the hunger within...

...and what happens then?

-----

[[Personal note: Y'know, I didn't want to do this again because of what happened the last time with this player--he got busy and, what with the timeline and all, I had to cold-rip an addiction out of my character. Much lack of fun at all, btw, playing these scenes out, and trust me, I had no want to do it again.

[[But here I am, and he's off, and who knows when he'll be back, and the little phouka is having to break the addiction again, and it's stronger this time. This...is going...to SUCK.

[[That's all there is to it. No more pretty demons. Demons bring the pretty, true, but they also bring the pain, the torture and the angst. Even in RP, I've had it.]]

[[Also--I've added a new tag for these, 'roleplay'--not that anyone's going to need to go through everything but me, but now everything RP should be neatly behind that one tag.]]

Good and bad from the Powers that Linden.

Good: debug options for those of us who never understood things like "cheesy beacon", and weren't particularly motivated to click settings at random. That'll help.

Bad, really, really bad: the new policy on gambling. And let me tell you why it's bad--because yet again, it is vague and inspecific when it needs to be clear!

For example. I dance at Dorian's. Since the slow crackdown on gambling, and casinos offering their services, we don't get as many people flush with winnings as we used to. Tips have gone down--drastically. Tips are how dancers pay rent.

So how do we make rent? We play the club's Sploder. And those wins, by and large, tide us over so we make our landlords happy, have enough to buy new outfits to dance in, continue dancing.

Oh, I'll still show up at the club, but...trust me, the Sploder goes away? I start getting pretty damned desperate for tips, which results in one kind of needy dancer, and I won't be the only one, and trust me on this too, people don't tip the desperate.

Or let's talk things like Slingo. I just learned how to play Slingo. I like it. I rarely win, but it's not about winning for me--it's about the fun in the game. Are games like Slingo, Tringo, the new "Zyngo", whatever that is, Greedy Greedy...are all games of such chance now prohibited??

Of course, with zero tips happening at my club, hells, why am I worried about playing Slingo? I won't be able to afford to!

I understand, they don't want to fight the Feds, I get that--they want things nice, and easy, and clear, and understandable...but they should then concentrate on making the rules they change, also clear, plain and simple to understand.

Weird day. Weird night last night.



Ended up silks shopping, in and out of Gor, something I thought I'd never do for anyone again. (Not the silks shopping, I own silks, though before last night, I had a firm dedication to only purchase silks from Image Reflections--no, the in and out of Gor bit.) It felt very much one step forward, two steps back, because so many sims were still having troubles, and I was forever wandering around on my own.



I was fascinated by Analise--not so much the silks, though they look surpassingly lovely, but more the ornate seraglio feel of the space--I'm currently in process of designing a pleasure garden, and I'm quite tempted to snag some of the design style here, see what transports to home.



The reason we were silk-shopping is that an acquaintance of the statue's--who, coincidentally, currently lives in Gor--had a silk set he highly admired. Multicolored tones of blue and rainbow, he said, butterfly top--and the closest we could find was ally Chevalier's shop, which didn't seem, quite, to have anything like this. But close--she had butterfly tops:



(Just for clarity, I didn't take that image, someone at SLNN did, all rights reserved to them, whomever they are)

and some truly lovely ideas, but nothing multicolored with the butterfly top.

The statue said, how hard could it be? And off we went. He had no idea how many silk shops there are on the grid...



It's an interesting game, to be sure. One step forward, two steps back. Or maybe one step ahead, one step to the side, and we dance in circles. I'm surprisingly accepting, and should this worry me? I don't think so...but then, mayhap, I wouldn't.

In other news, I saw the once and future princeling, last night. Leader of the Forsaken was DJing on her new yacht, and told me to get dressed and get my ass down to the docks. Yes, ma'am. I invited the statue, and just as I rezzed in, and called him, she told me the vampire ex had made an appearance.

I'm sad to say, he looked...terrible. Oh, he never dances at dances, that's not the thing, that's just him, as irritating as it was and is. But...he always looked good, good enough to charm the heart, good enough to pang me with the loss of the one he used to be.

Last night? He wore black. As always. He wore a cape. As nearly always. He had spiked up all that glorious fall of silver-glitter hair, and it stuck out in uneven masses of spikes and curls. What in all the hells....

He saw me when the DJ screamed my name, and said hello. I said hello. He asked how I was doing. I said good, but busy. It's a truthful answer.

Then the statue arrived, and I introduced him to the DJ, and...the vampire I'd loved and lost fell very, very silent.

I remember making one comment about his hair, when he mentioned how very pretty he was...but honestly, that hair, how could I not? It positively unnerved me to see it in such disarray. But ten minutes later, whatever the reason...he was gone, from the yacht, from Forsaken lands, from the world.

It's very hard not to see this personally.

There's some small and unworthy portion of my soul that's cackling madly...in case it turns out to be seeing me, with or without the statue...that drove him away.

Very unworthy portion. No good at all. Stop that at once, Em.

Muahahahaha....

Hovering in limbo. It's not all it's cracked up to be.

And it's making me grumpy on top of everything else. So in the meantime, while I wait...

...more playing Where Am I Now?



This is just embarrassing. I swear, all I did was stand up, and my legs snapped off at the hip and my hair went away. Funnily enough, I was less upset at the loss of limbs than my hair. Typical, I suppose.



And in this shot, all I was trying to do was sit down. That's all. In fact, it looks like most of me managed to achieve it. Barring that one recalcitrant leg.



Then I had to get ready for the Harry Potter dance in Steelhead. (No, I did not win the costume contest. But I had grand fun coming up with the costume.) For this--portraying Nymphadora Tonks--I found appropriate short spiky purple hair, a lovely rosewood wand with jeweled additions on the handle, and I made the robe. I tracked down a pink-tinged skin I had forgotten I owned in my inventory, added to it a pair of glittery pink eyes, and then got dressed--the big studded belt and the combat boots both designed and created by Zoe Llewellyn over at Boneflower, the striped leggings and purple-striped stockings from Ameshin Yossarian at Curious Kitties (they're having a 50 Linden sale right now, you should go look), and the t-shirt was made by Alexandra Rucker. (It says, I never fake sarcasm. If you want one, IM her, I'm sure she has reasonable rates.)

In coming in to Steelhead, I ended up in midair, slowly twisting. I waited five minutes, and realized there was no future in this--snapped the picture and was gone.



Finally, this is less a what-is-going-on note, than a who-would-do-this note. I was shopping. Shopping requires free movement. Shopping also requires, one would imagine, customers who aren't bound in one place behind magical circles.

So...why on earth would a shopkeeper make his beam-in point the center of a spell ring?

It's a mystery of the universe, I'm sure.

In other news, one of my dear ones led me to the one driven Transformers fan in game currently making his own transforming avatars. Though that was interesting, it's the land just across from his, Craazy's, that's got the cool thing on it. This is the first really interesting use for sculpted prims I've seen--a moving waterfall.

In person? It's even more impressive. Can't remember how to get there, just now, but if you search for Transformers, transforming avatars, something like that...the little shack that could just might come up.

Or give the grid a bit to come back up, fickle world that it is...and I'll be able to track down the SLUrl.

I linger in the doorway
Of alarm clock screaming monsters
Calling my name
Let me stay
Where the wind will whisper to me
Where the raindrops as they're falling tell a story

It's been a bad night. And it's not getting better. And I want, I want, I so want it to get better.

In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullabies
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me

Heard from a friend that the crypt of my long-lost love has been destroyed, utterly. Not a stone, not a bone remains. In a fit of pique she killed him again, and...I can't even communicate the loss to her in ways she'll understand. She has his new incarnation in her life, not that she'll speak to him...but I don't even have that.

And it's truly not him I wanted, anyway. I wanted the one I lost, the one who died. As long as I had his crypt, it was...not enough, but...it helped. He helped, even as bones and ash.

Now that's gone, never to return, one more place of peace for me...destroyed.

Don't say I'm out of touch
With this rampant chaos, your reality
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge,
The nightmare, I built my own world to escape.

And then came the news of the loss of the demon...



Seems there was a French lady of some uncertain intellect--don't give me that look, I've met her, I can say that--who managed to find a way to undo his existence utterly. It's almost impressive, in a tragic sense--I just sent him back to Hell, from whence he could--and did--return. She erased him.

In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullabies
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me

And the questions begin.

Why do you care? he asks me. Isn't it easier, having him gone? And oh, how I wish there was a simple 'yes' to that question...



And even now, I don't know. I don't know why it's not a Gosh, what a loss, well, I'm off for tea reaction. I'm still trapped in the horror of it. The horror of losing a face, a form, a...a self, sure, that's part of it...

...but yes. There's...something...left. Tragic and stunted as it's become. I'm...somewhat in mourning.

Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming
Cannot cease for the fear
Of silent nights
Oh how I long for the deep sleep dreaming
The goddess of imaginary light

And then my neko lad and I argued. And what led up to that was...psychotic. I remember...being clasped by passion, body alive and alight, fire-warmed skin pressed to his...and he stopped, he pulled away, he got up and he pulled on clothes and he left.

Just like that.

I don't think I stopped seeing fire for three hours. I'm still angry.



He asked, after I'd staggered to my feet, and shifted, that initial shrugging off of rejected flesh that is my way...if we could meet, somewhere, and talk.

I went to my artist's gallery. I went in alternate succubus guise, burned and burning eyes, red scar markings, red hair, red Kanji staggering across my garments. I went and stood in judgement, and it was a harsh and uncomfortable conversation.

The only resolution was to tell him not to do it again, and to know that now I watch him, now I'm wary of him, and I never wanted that. Never.

In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullabies
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me...

There were roses growing through the club car. Now they've all burnt away.

Welcome to the train wreck love-life. Again.

(Lyrics are Evanescence's "Imaginary")

I admit, I've been watching these things pop up on various members of the Bloodwing Foundation, so I finally had to test their software.

http://www.myheritage.com

I'm most intrigued by Peter O'Toole, frankly.

This one was better, though:

http://www.myheritage.com

My boy! Manson! Whee, with my...Sailor Moon hair, I...look like...Marilyn...

...wait.

My little human dancer...looks more like Marilyn Manson...than...this?



Or this?



That just...doesn't make a lot of sense...

...but it's amusing anyway. Now I have virtual DNA. How keen.

((RP MODE))

She paces before his manse, snarling, pale furred tail whipping in the still night air. She stops, scenting the air, and snarls again--he's been here, yes, and not all that long ago, and never spoke a word to her.

I'll kill him. Best fighter in the kingdom or not, I will kill him, if he goes through with this and expects me to accept this with docile good will. I will not go easily into this bargain.

She paces, turning at precise ninety-degree angles, then turns again, following the line of the walls around to the back. Servants' quarters, traditionally, and here, she scents out the lad from the Eastern lands--this is how he'd gotten in, the demon behind his eyes driving him to enter the Raven's abode.

Thinks he can just hand me over, demon to demon agreeing, thinks I'll accept--he's got several other thinks coming.

Earlier, the sound of the demon within the Eastern lad cackling in her ear, describing meeting with her lost Raven, describing how he'd walked into his lair, and found the Eastern lad in his bed. Quite confused him, until the demon within had spoken, and reacquainted him with whom he actually spoke.

Does he honestly think I will agree to this? Does he honestly think my succubus will blindly go along? Does he really, truly, honestly think, not telling me is a good plan?

Not talking to me at all. Supposed to care for me. Supposed to want me back. Not supposed to make bargains with demons to give me away.

She stalks around his abode, carving her sigil into the lintel on his door. She glares, pressing her hand against the new carving. If he had any doubt, he'll be able to smell her now. She was here. And she was not best pleased. Snarling, she turns, walking back to the gypsies' camp, and from there down to the shore. She shifts into fins, and swims off. Mayhap the cool water will help her calm down.

Bastard. Half-Drow, thick-headed, overconfident, ex-Raven...demon-sided...Sidhe-sided...man...He won't complete this deal without talking to me.

If he knows anything about women...anything about me...he'd better figure that one out.

She snarls as she moves for deeper, colder waters...maybe she'll find a shark. See how she fares with blood in the water. This morning...she's fairly sure she'd be the victor. It's something else to keep in mind...

Of course it's the way of things...my inner daemon? Is a shapeshifter:



I was a rabbit, see. Actually, an elongated hare. Now...at least when last seen...my daemon was a Great Dane? EEEE! Somebody fix that...

But more notes from Valruna.

((RP MODE))

Strange things are afoot in the land. The Queen has gone missing, and another risen in her stead. Two of the dragons have vanished, one with clues left behind (the gold), one with no clue and without trace (the black). Still there is no understanding as to why the Dark Knight faction went to war with the village--and, not incidentally, with the single representative of the Unseelie Sidhe in town.

And there is a parchment I cannot touch, sealed with a demon's personal mark, left where my half-Drow once-love will find it.

I'm informed of several things, regarding this parchment. First, that should the once-Raven accept the terms, he will gain a personal servant. As I don't truly believe his draw is to males, just females, I doubt the lad from the Eastern lands will have to test his capacity. Just his endurance when facing hard physical labor--and mayhap torture, depending. Second, that if the Captain agrees, I lose access to the one feeding me, and coincidentally, the one to whom I'm addicted--resulting in a harsh break in the chain, another physical--and emotional, at this point--addiction to rip from my system. Third, though--and more worrying--if the Captain accepts these terms? The demon within the lad from the East will be given the freedom of my succubus.

And this, believe me, I have problems with. I am Sidhe, and demoness within or not, I am not property to be traded at a whim. Let alone whatever accords must be reached with the demonic to achieve certain goals--I am not so easily dispensable. If the demon, let alone my Raven love, think this is going to happen with nary a complaint from me...they both are tragically mistaken.

And they will learn. Neither of them has ever seen me truly fight in their arms. They have little clue and less knowledge to draw upon. I will not accede to this with gladness of heart. I am not coin to be sold, gift to be given or poppet for their plays.

They will learn. And then we will see what happens next.

((RP MODE))

It's never a good thing, to lay of an evening, cheek pressed to cold stone, and watch the stone stain with the blood that should stay within you. And to this moment, I still don't know why...

Perhaps I should start earlier.

Just off from the gypsy's camp, in Valruna, are the high stone gates of the village. Whether by accident or design there is a tall, creaking wooden ladder set against the inner wall. One day I decided to climb its rungs and find out what was at the top. One very long, very steep climb later, I was at the heights, and all of Valruna lay before me. It's something of a breathtaking view.

Since, I've climbed to the heights more than once, and there's something glorious in standing there, hair whipped by chill winds, inhaling the breath of trees. I can't describe it better than that.

This night, I climbed to the heights, preparing to sit some, and think by myself, and women--near as I could figure, human women--fell from the sky, weapons drawn. While I was trying to puzzle out how humans could fly, here, they accosted me. Asked me to intercede with them on behalf of the Queen. Apparently their castle had been closed to them, their Order disbanded, and they were incensed.

I knew nothing of this, and, despite having known the Queen in Lumindor, I had no influence with her. I tried to tell them this, but they would hear none of my words. They spoke of storming the castle. They spoke of killing the villagers. Eventually, I grew bored with their prattle and moved some distance away, in the hopes they'd get the idea I didn't want to be involved with their political machinations and move away.

This, I now realize, was a profound error.

I gasped when the first arrow struck me. The next three hurt too. By then I'd turned so the following two caught me, one through my left upper arm, one through my side. I faced my attackers, knowing I had no defenses--I hadn't worn my sword into the village, I'd never been practiced with distance weapons, and my magics were dusty from disuse.

"Why are you shooting me?" was all I thought to say, and they said nothing. Well, why would they? Four more arrows hit me and I staggered back, flinging a hand over my eyes. The last two caught that arm, I pulling my head to the side just in time, and had no more strength to stand. Red hazed my vision as I collapsed, and the last thing I heard was the group of three debating whether to hide my body, or just toss a blanket over it.

In the end I didn't even get the blanket, and darkness swept over me. The iron tips of the arrows burned, burned like acid, like fire, and I hadn't hurt so much since I'd been stabbed by the wanderer with the sword in Lumindor.

All I could think to do was send my mind out, calling for aid. The lad from the Eastern lands answered, and sobbed, because something prevented him from coming to my side. I swear I heard distant dark laughter, but whose, is an entirely different question. I sent my mind out again, the breath in me weakening, watching the ribbons of scarlet pool over the stone...

...and Dr. Darien Bloodwing answered. Of all the times to reach him...

He dropped his bag at my feet, asking me what had happened, checking my pulse. It was thready, as expected, and I explained as best I could through the pain--it wasn't as if it was unclear in any way, twelve arrows still pincushioned me.

He pulled a pair of pliers from his bag, saying nothing further, and I closed my eyes, trying to keep breathing. I think I said--most ungratefully!--"Fine, don't talk to me", and he simply sighed.

I felt each arrowhead leave me as if it were another drop of poison drained from my system. I was growing dizzy, however, and somewhat nauseous, and still wondering why on earth I'd been shot.

I turned my head as he pulled the arrows out of my arms, wrapping every wound carefully, eyes not meeting mine.

"How did you get here, anyway?" I whispered. I thought such abilities had left him when the horns did. He smiled ruefully, turning his attentions to my side.

"I still have the ability to sense when Death is near," he said softly, and I blanched. That grievously wounded? I had no idea.

He remarked the side wound was deeper, and began to apply compresses to staunch the bleeding. I told him to simply wrap it, I'd heal it later. He nodded, and did so, trying to jostle me as little as possible, and packed up his supplies and stood. He stood for a moment, looking down at me, not saying a word...and then he vanished, without a sound.

I rested for a bit, trying to regain strength I'd lost in the attack, and heard voices drifting up from below. It took every scrap of strength I had to drag myself to the stone wall's edge, but I looked down. Blearily, I noticed a knight of my acquaintance, a wood elf in green, two men in black and the woman who'd started the round of seeing how many arrows I could bear. I had to get down there, and I chose the most expedient method--I dragged myself over the lip and fell.

When those gathered noticed my wounds, they rushed over, and I explained, with every ounce of clarity I could, who'd shot me. She had the gall to sneer.

The knight knelt at my side, beginning to pray, an intense, warm, blue energy surrounding his hands, sinking into me. It didn't hurt, and soon, it made nothing within me hurt, and that was the best gift of all. The rest of the men gathered there arrested the one who'd fired upon me, and bound her off in chains to await judgement. And as they conveyed her off, she turned to the knight and told him not to pray over me; she turned to me and said I was being a child over this, that the others they'd shot that night hadn't said a word.

Mayhap because they'd died and I hadn't, I pointed out, and she just tossed her head, shrugging.

Perhaps she's mad. Or cursed. I know not. I only know I was too tired to do anything for the rest of the evening, but lay, and heal, and it will be some time before I feel safe in Valruna again.

Do consider donating for the care and upkeep of Bloodwing Hospital, or whatever he chooses to call it. Miraculously--even for me--he makes house calls. There are worse things in this world than a doctor who cares in it.

[Late correction: it's going to be the Caledon Regency Hospital, on the new Caledon Regency sim. Do support it. Doctors in SL don't make nearly as much.]

((RP MODE))

So it started with the girl.

A while before I'd all but fallen onto her porch, I'd reacquainted myself with the young man from the Eastern lands I'd met, before I'd been locked away on the dreaming isle. In one sense I was astounded he remembered me at all; but in the other sense, I always had to remember that as long as it had been for me, it had been a very much shorter time for everyone else.

I searched for the Captain of the Ravens, my lost half-Drow love, and received only intermittent mental contact, no sense of place, not a thing that could aid me in cleaving to his side again. Plus, I wasn't entirely sure I wished to, because for me, it had been so long...

Then came what, to me, was the crushing blow: I went to Valruna, stood in the village square, and called for him, and...he would not see me. That night, I needed to see him, I needed to, hard-edged in me, the resurgance of succubus drives after long trial, and...he refused. He refused. He turned me aside with a cavalier amusement and an invitation to come see him anon.

I did what I felt I had to--I fled to the young man from the Eastern lands, and he proposed an...alliance, of sorts. He would feed me, feed every desire in me--surging energy, sensual bliss, blood--and in return, his demon within would feed from me.

I thought I looked at every angle. I thought I understood. I thought I was making a rational, reasoned decision.

I was wrong.

He'd mentioned addiction, this young lad. I'd been addicted once, previously, to the demon within the third incubus. I thought--hard as it was--if I really needed to rip the addiction out of me, full-formed, I could. And in the meantime, I'd have what I want.

Right?

Maybe not so.

The morning I'm thinking of, I was spending time at the fire of the gypsies' camp, and there was a very worried damsel, worried over her friend in the tent behind me. In general, I'm not a gypsy, I don't look in their tents--but she started screaming for the healer, and I had this vague impulse I might be able to help. So I rose from the fire, walked over to the tent--and was struck dumb by febrile red glow.

It was the girl in the red dress. But now trembling, shaking, and fairly completely unaware of her surroundings.

It had been some few days since the last time I was fed. I hoped to see the lad that evening, but--I couldn't turn away. As they screamed for aid, undressed her, drew a cool bath in the large wooden tub--I drifted over, lifting the woman's arm, thumb rubbing over her pulse, thinking. I tried sending my consciousness out, around hers, into hers, and was blasted by unheard-of levels of pain, rage, anger, outright hate. What in all the hells was going on here??

Her friend leapt into the bath, holding her out of the water so she wouldn't sink to the bottom and drown. She wanted to die; that much I'd gotten. I didn't know how much I could help freeing her of a death wish, and I began to ask her for permission to help. The healer arrived, took one look at her, sneered at the 'demon' in the midst, made some harsh comment about the vampire in the camp, and I knew two things, with clear surety:

1. If I bit the girl, to help her heal, it might get me staked; and

2. If I used any of my succubus skills, she might very well kill me anyway. Just on general principle.

I admit, I was frozen. And hungry, and getting hungrier. And it didn't help that it would have been so easy, so easy, to lean down, open a vein, and drink...

I shuddered with it, watching as the woman of the Rom debated various things, the healer obdurately proclaiming she needed more time to come up with a solution. Finally, a healing circle was called, and again, I felt I couldn't turn away.

I joined it, but rather than send my energies out in link with the other women, I sent my energies into her, trying to draw out that pool of red anger, black loathing, I'd felt in her. It nearly overwhelmed me, and the pull of her was riptide--so much of my energy sank into her, trying to free her from emotional pain, even as the others tried to purge her of fever.

I shuddered as the circle fell, staggering to the fire, spending enough time to know I could walk off on my own, and then realizing, if I did, I'd just find the nearest warm body and drink them dead. And I...couldn't. Not now. Bad precedent, I'd told the healer, to start a day by killing, and I still agreed.

I worked my way high into the hills to an abandoned keep, finding a crack in the wall and crawling into the mountain, slowing my breathing and pulling in everything I could...and spent several hours trying not to think.

The first contact I had from the Eastern lad I nearly leapt on him, mentally--and he agreed to see me. I crawled out of the riven cleft in the land, at that time, I thought, scraping my back, causing odd pains and shivers through me, as I went. I fled to his side, begging him to take me, feed me, and--that's when everything skewed.

He threw me on the bed, the demon within him, and while I was struggling, the odd pain in my back getting worse, he tied me down. I was too distracted to fight him, and he plunged into me without a further word, offering me his neck. I nearly tore it open, feeding as if I'd die without him, and thought never another thing until a savage pain tore through me, tearing down the length of my spine, drawing screams that were anything but pleasure cries. I begged him to turn me over, because I hurt, it hurt, and I couldn't understand--

He untied me, the lad from the Eastern lands, the demon receding, and turned me over, stroking down my back--and it split under his hands, thick, pale tendrils forcing themselves out, glistening, waving in the air. I didn't know this then--I knew it later, when he placed his hands on one, moving it down into my range of view.

Now, my succubus has always had an odd manifestation--invisible tendrils, thin as reeds, able to entice, skin to skin, able to drain energy, sinking through skin, but all intangible, unseen. These were not unseen. These aren't unseen, though I can hide them.



Even hidden from open view, those who can see energy can see them, trailing from me. They are with me always.

The lad from the Eastern lands...says I'm evolving.



By all the gods and all the hells...into what?!?

((RP MODE))

It started with the girl.

I can't start there, really, I should tell more of the tale, but...for me, it started with the girl. Everything before was just...what happened before, the days in the life, turning into months, and years, and decades...

You see, when I left Lumindor, my heart was broken. The lands I loved had changed; the rulers I'd tacitly obeyed had turned their back on anyone not mortal within their purview. It felt...hopeless, and endless, and...lost.

My Queen knew I was unwell, and took me to a lovely island. It truly was, a stunning place--flower-bedecked pathways, an underwater grotto for swimming, a quaint and ancient graveyard, a dark brooding cathedral. She pointed out the elegant details, room after room of fine attire, and bid me stay and heal.

What I did not realize was when she left...I couldn't. And I couldn't for many, many years.

At first I raged against it...I mean, really, how dare she, ruler or not, take all my choice away? I was not her servant, I was her courtier, her phouka, on occasion her chosen emissary, consort to the Captain of her Raven Guard...

...the rage lasted a good ten years. And I was still stuck.

I swam in the grotto, experimenting with various forms; I explored the shoreline, the cathedral, the graveyard. I discovered secret passages and sunken gazebos and dark towers and meditation spaces. I tried on all the clothes.

That took another ten years.

After that, I started thinking. Why had things gone so bad in Lumindor? Oh, I knew the base of it--political upset, human-first thinking, a score of backbiting back and forth, a traitor in the high court--sure, that much was obvious. But my end of it, you see...I wondered if I had made life harder for my Court, and my Queen...had I made life harder for those who cared for me, like my half-Drow love, like others I cared for? How did my behavior affect them?

That took twenty years, twenty long years, thinking every day, trying to learn, testing out my behavior, going a little mad from hunger, from personal pain, from doubt, from confusion...day after day after day of had I been wrong?

The last ten years I spent on the island were easy, by comparison. Thin as a wraith, eyes haunted, focusing on a set few shapes instead of the multiplicitous profusion I'd favored before, but soul...if one counts the Sidhe as having souls...mostly at peace. I'd forced the fledgling within to reach an accord, and we mostly operated in concert; Lilit and I as a unit, not two fighting spirits trapped in the same flesh.

And fifty years to the day that my Queen had conveyed me to the lovely little aisle...the spell lifted and I was free. I took a ship I'd built in my spare time and ferried it to the nearest section of mainland I could find, and set out to discover how life had changed for all those I'd left behind.

The second surprise was waiting. Only a few months had passed in the world, while I'd been locked far away, wrestling with my ethics and my inner demon. Startling, the realization; somehow worse, to note that few noticed my absence. Fifty years of my days, fifty long, eternal nights; every face I saw still remembered mine, who'd known it before.

And Lumindor still tottered on, though in my absence, Valruna had flourished, the lands now belonging to my former employer, and once adviser to Lumindor's King. She'd extended me--all of the Unseelie Court--an invitation to her realm, but I hadn't taken it...though I did begin to think about it.

I heard from the Captain, his mental voice febrile and unnerving. I heard from a gentle soul I'd nearly forgotten, possessor now of a demon of long-ago acquaintance; he also bid me come to Valruna. I heard from a monk I thought had long forgotten me, urging me to come to the land.

What could I do, so many voices tugging at me? I went. And I wandered, and looked my fill, and....it was so very like my lost Lumindor, the wilds I'd treasured so fiercely...I was not guardian of these lands, but they accepted me, and I walked where I willed, learning, exploring...watching.

I found the camp of the gypsies, and it felt like home. It felt more like home than the Court did, nearly more like home than my lost tree next to the little pond in the wilds. I spent many days there, talking with Rom I'd known and those I didn't, learning about the land, its rulers, the factions, the people.

One night, I told myself, I would wander corner to corner, shoreline to swell of hill, and see what could be seen. I'd climbed for an hour up the very steep side of a mountain sharp as dragons' teeth, when I slipped, half-sliding, half-falling, down the incline to the tower keep below. I quickly hid, hissing over scraps on my arms and legs that already beaded with blood, when I saw a dark figure, and a bright one, move within the structure.

The dark one swirled with an energy alien to my perceptions, but also one I'd known before--the third incubus I'd ever met, he'd felt like that, he'd nearly...looked like that, and I watched him, confused. But if he with his black skin and tendrilled wings was a sight to see, the woman stalking past my position was enough to make him look plain in comparison.

It wasn't that she was pretty; of course she was. Of course she was a vision; pale skin, cloud of pale hair, a red dress cut close to every curve she had. But more than that, she glowed; and by that, I mean she radiated her own scarlet light, throwing rose shadows on the walls of the keep, glittering from her skin, the strands of her hair, her dress.

She stalked past me, and I could barely breathe, watching her, and they both left for the village, and I...I followed. I followed as they went to the castle of the Queen, and I snuck as close as I could to where they stood, to listen. I was so intent on what they said, it was only the sound of swords leaving scabbards that drew my attention away.

And it was a lovely bit of confusion, explaining my actions to four suspicious wood elves, and then all over again to the Queen above, as the argument had attracted her attention...but all was sorted, and off everyone went. And I thought that was the end of it, until two days ago, when I saw the radiant one again.

So...as I said, it started with the girl...

(to be continued)

He calls me, and I pick up the line. He asks how I'm doing. I say I'm fine.

I want to say, why are you talking to me, across the miles? Why are you asking after me? I want to say, you broke my heart, can't you let me be?

I ask him how he is. He says he's fine. He asks what I'm doing.

I want to say, why do you care? You threw me away, that wasn't enough? Now you invade my thoughts and ask me questions, and why am I still important to you, if I wasn't important enough to keep?

I tell him. Involved in this. Involved in that. The usual, I say.

Photography, building. Parties, dancing. I've filled a life and no section of it belongs to him anymore. He has no tie to me, no call to me, I have no reason to seek him out. Yet he speaks to me.

The conversation trails to a halt. He doesn't have much to say these days.

And I remember when we spoke for hours, saying everything, saying nothing, just being together, talking, each to each...he was my heart and soul and all my dreaming, and...now even the memories are dust...

I wait, each time he calls. I wait if he has more to say. I wait and see if I have words to say to him.

Words like, "Goodbye." Words like, "Never speak to me again." Words like, "I will not listen if you call, do not try."

But no. He remains on my contacts, to contact me. Haunt of my past, and never to be free of him. Even the dead version of his soul is still on my list.

Silver-haired idiot.

Great, here we go again...and when precisely does this new aberration end? Bring back the crossed eyes already, please--I'll be more patient, I promise! This...this...not knowing where I am in space and time, it...drains a body, you would not believe.

something takes a part of me
something lost and never seen
every time I start to believe,
something's raped and taken from me...from me--



I seem to be getting used to it, at least. But now, it's everything else in the way...the constant struggle to understand, for example, to get what I've done wrong, to properly articulate wrongs done to me...without crushing souls...that's so difficult. You don't know how difficult.

I'm trying, though. Always trying. When I stop trying...that is when we worry.



Something I'm actually grateful for, in all this--I went to a friend's rez day party in fins. I, being me, got stuck between a sanded knoll and the edge of the pier. In trying to get out, I snuck out by cam view, selected a chair, and willed myself into it.

I found myself...here. Wherever here is.



But here was unbelieveably pretty. I admit, I got lost in the contrasts, the spaces between utter dark and glowing light, the sensation of sunset so near I could almost break it off in my hands and warm myself by the glow.

Truly. Breathtaking sights. I wouldn't have missed that for all the rest of it.



Of course, the rest of it involved several jaunts into limbo, and more of the glittering febrile light than I wished to experience, all at once, but...one can't have everything, can one?

sometimes I cannot take this place
sometimes it's my life I can't taste
sometimes I cannot feel my face
you'll never see me fall from grace

But I'm getting tired. I'm getting tired of fighting. I'll rebound, I always do, but...it gets exhausting, living so guardedly at all times. I find myself wishing for just a space of clarity, of gentle rain after heat, of crisp cool wind after tornado. Something...different. Something...changed.

Mayhap I wish for deeper, more fundamental change, but I have no idea how to achieve it. All I know is...I tire. Of nearly everything.

feeling like a freak on a leash. (you wanna see the light?)
feeling like I have no release. (so do I)
how many times have I felt diseased? (you wanna see the light?)
nothing in my life is free...is free...

It does lead to interesting paths of contemplation, though. What does it mean that I fought the others so hard to gain even an inch of ground, and him, I accede willingly? I'm still my own person, I own my measure of independence, but I willingly hand such over, at my own will, at his.

What does it mean that I do this for him, and no other?

What does it mean that I can't envision something he'd ask I wouldn't willingly do, for him, because he asked, because it was my will to make him happy?

I'd say...this was a fundamental change, that I now should watch my interactions with other beings I encounter, but...no. Still no one else.

Still just him.

It's an oddity.



And when I finally track down where the hell those face lights are, the ones I didn't even remember owning, and detach them...oh, I'll be so much happier.

(Lyric selections from Korn's "Freak On a Leash". I'm specifically thinking of the acoustic, Jonathan Davis/Amy Lee version, but you're free to find the studio one, as well.)

I've been named an honorary Caledonian by one who, if they do not have the power to make such pronouncements, has seized such authority, and has not been challenged on its use. I am treating this as a high honor, actually, because with very few exceptions, the Caledonians I've met have been affable, friendly, committed souls who are joys to interact with.

Do I feel like a Caledonian, honorary or not? Well...not precisely. So much of my life on the grid is tied up with....pursuits that are not precisely Victorian. Dance clubs, competitions, costumes involving a great deal of spandex...not exactly appropriate for Victoria City, you understand. Among others. Besides which, I am still baffled when presented with more than two forks for a meal, and the grand balls held during the social season--while grand indeed--make me oddly uncomfortable. It's lack of familiarity, surely, but also...I think some part of it, if one doesn't understand all the social cues, one misses much more than one knows.

At least, this one does.

And I'm honest about this, at least--I know my history. My father was the youngest son in a tengu family, high above the mountains of the prefecture. My mother was a feral neko with some unusual traits in her bloodline. Together they produced me, neko only partially, human only partially, many many things only part of the time. Put me in high society and honestly, I'm more tempted to crawl under the table and throw bones at the guests.

I do my best, I'm as polite as I know how to be. But it's one reason I stay in Steelhead--or parts further south, on the mainland--because there, when I slip, I'm gently chided at best--and that is if anyone notices at all.

In the meantime...the odd flipping between space, sea and reality continues:



At least the sunset's pretty?



You can dimly see the horizon line on this one. Both of these, by the by, were simple sit-on-object, stand-from-sitting view relocations. I'm very nearly used to this now, which is tragically disappointing.



The only thing all of these incidents share? The fact that I sat down upon, or rose from, an object. It doesn't seem to matter which object, just that I did interact with it in some way. So disheartening...



And familiarity breeding contempt and all that? I'm already more than tired of the scenery.



Under the ocean, up in the air, doesn't seem to matter, and seems to be entirely random as to which one I'll get. Oh, and the 0,0,0 bug has ceased today. Now?

All the ocean flips are dropping me to 0,0,1. *Aheh*.



If nothing else...it is slowly, by virtue of the necessity of choice (it's either learn this lesson or go screamingly insane), teaching me patience.

I suppose it's long overdue...

...and, as usual, we can't have simply flipping, noooo, we must have weirdness, too. Like coming back from a hard crash to find oneself in a different skin entirely:



::sighs::

And it's not even Linden default skin. It was...some skin I haven't yet seen yet. I'm not even entirely sure it's one that I own....

And lo, the Lindens said to us, denizens of the grid, that there shall be an update. And lo, there was an update. And lo, it...

...is really, really bad.

For me it's not just about the flipping into limbo every twenty minutes; that's bad enough, really, that's just draining to the system, and me already with problems of the broken Key and the inability to track down the spell that enchanted it the first time.

No, this is...much, much worse.



This is me in Steelhead, at 121, -2, -122. Why am I there? Your guess is as good as mine, I just sat down on a chair.



This is me picking something at random to recline on in one of the skyboxen above Taiyou, to check positions of things. Steelhead, 0, 0, 0. I thought we got rid of that bug...



Don't honestly remember the markers for this one, but it was yet again--standing up from a poseball. Poseball furniture seems not to work, or to take a long time for the animations to kick in, and nearly always, last night, left me stranded somewhere in midair, or at Marianas-trench depths under the ocean, every single time.



I'm sure you get the idea, though. This is very, very annoying.

Let's try this again, beach version. Here's me standing up from my own AO's sit anim under the water:



And here's me standing up from a hammock:



And again, just after I've returned from...wherever the hell my line of sight goes during one of these events:



Oh, it gets worse. I transported to a new location from the beach, and...all hell broke loose.



Wait for it...



...there. Can anyone tell me why this is happening?

I mean, really...inquiring minds want to know!



WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY EYES?!?