you tell me it calms your nerves, you just think it looks cool

You people. You people, you did not tell me.

Late last night, I was thrown off the grid again, cursing in limbo, trying to fight my way back. At this point, I'm resigned to having multiple download browsers to try, in the hopes that one of them, of an early morning, will work to get me back in.

Last night my beloved Nicholaz did not work. 1.18.3 did not work. The 1.18.5 release candidate did not work.

But Windlight...Windlight got me in.

Why didn't you tell me? You're all FIRED.

I got in, unable to access Penzance for some reason, so defaulted to Genesis. This...was a major error. Everything hurt to look at--bright and vivid and seemingly cut of beveled lead crystal. I was hoping it was just Miss sachi Vixen's build, but then my Fawkes summoned me back and...it was worse.



It was so much worse. The rug seemed to radiate color, very nearly virulently. The gleam off the height detector I keep out looked like reflections off carved aluminum. Even worse? I knew I'd built the skybox! So I was responsible for the horror!

After a few moments of whimpering and hiding, Fawkes told me I might have preferences wrong. I pulled open Preferences and stared in stupefaction at the plethora of new options. Dear gods. People deal with this?!?

I was told I might have Atmospheric Sliders on.

"It's not on," I cried.

"Well...turn it on?"



*coughs, gasping*

NOT THE RIGHT ANSWER!

Everything was yellow. And not just yellow--garish methine yellow, bleeding across my vision, making me wish I had sunglasses. I switched to midnight.

DO NOT DO THIS. It made the radioactive glow worse.

Shuddering, I switched back to region default, thinking, if I have to experience the terror, at least I can share it.



Why didn't Fawkes tell me the fireplace was that bright?? And the FIRE....Shaking my head, I left the skybox, heading for home.



Going down to the house I kept having to pause to breathe. The sky was even stronger now, sweeping yellow and white, whilst the bubble I rode down within seemed to throb with vivid, psychotropic coloration.



It wasn't better on the ground. My hair made me shudder, the stained-glass windows installed in the attic shone like small stars, and Mr. Shaunathan Sprocket's normally sedate mantle clock? Looked carved of pale teal gelatin with internal gears, throbbing with a green uranium core.

This was SL on drugs. This was drugs without the drugs. How do you people LIVE with this?!?



Downstairs? No better. My hair still horrified, glittering bands of pale shining turquoise kept running down my scarf, and bands of pink, white and Curie green raced across the now nearly transparent windows. The window to my left, in fact, looked like a postapocalyptic skyline, nuked until that fine, emerald glow was achieved. All the walls seemed set in panels that lightly vibrated from the true, not standing firm and nailed as normal home walls would.



I staggered from the house and moaned in abject horror--my autumn trees, finally turned, did not bear any tones resembling their former royal golds, pale oranges, and russet reds. Instead, they raced with actinic white, bubble-pink, and cyan overtones, when they didn't flash burned black, the edges crisping and dark. I gritted my teeth, walking to the store.



I walked towards the store, cyanotic scarf rippling in my wake, and paused to gape dully at what had been the trolley tracks. Now? A glistening cut of shimmering smoked glass, washed in emerald highlights, set between the brick faces.

The horror. The horror.

And who sprayed all the fake snow on the storefronts?!? I moved on.



I was, slowly and laboriously, becoming used to the banana-yellow sky. But the closer I got to the store, the more the windows and walls faded from sparkling white to atramentous shadow, swimming with the now-perpetual lime gleaming.

A crazed thought occured--if Silent Hill had been a town in Oz, was this what it would have looked like?



And there she was. CiCi the chromed. Why, oh why....and the wrought iron columns rippling, viridescent across the ebon casting.



I stumbled towards the shore, closing my eyes. I remember Miss Rothschild sending me pictures of lovely water reflections, of her new home rising from water-dewed mist, sparkling and fresh. That, I thought, at least that will work...I will see that, and then I will flee.

Even that. Not even that. Yes, there were water reflections--of that ochroid sky, not--

I rubbed my eyes fiercely, pulling up the preferences menu, shutting down everything.



OH YES THAT'S SO MUCH BETTER.

Now, I have a blue sky--pallid, bleached and featureless, but at least blue--but the former waters of sapphire clarity grew murky, slate-dark. These were waters Dagon would be comfortable in! WHO CAME UP WITH THIS ABERRANT BROWSER?!?



Whimpering audibly, I fled back to my house, turning my eyes from everything but my goal--the one thing that had not changed in any way, my Caledon postal box. I curled around it, nearly weeping at the steady sameness of it. And promptly fell asleep.

This morning, I would have dismissed all as a dream, save for these captured images. It was not a dream! THE HORROR EXISTS!

AVOID WINDLIGHT! SAVE YOURSELVES!