in the lonely light of morning, in the wound that would not heal
Awesome--she's showing her knees!
SN@TCH is one of the stranger businesses on the grid. Ivey Deschanel started her SL business with a single small store full of rockabilly sass and tattoo shirts. She's now expanded to a full sim and rents space to other merchants who are becoming equally well-known. She's part of the group that runs a highly successful--and usually deeply upsetting--haunted house every year, which changes themes but always offers something of a mystery to solve, some well-thought out design, and freebies along the way.
Her latest card advertising her 'Humpday' item this week featured this passage:
"Humpday Happiness is clouded this week by the lingering stink of some skank but don't let that deter you from shopping at all the fab places just cause a little scunge and her snot-nosed friends smeared her bad mojo on our fun."
The hell?
So I looked into it. Seems a Miss Penelope Thiessam got involved last week for the Humpday stores, all worked up because she's been banned at SN@TCH and doesn't even know why.
Well, I'm not entirely sure why, either--though I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say that posts like these, for better or worse, are likely what got her into this fix. Just as my posts on Step Up! got me banned at sims sympathetic to their cause.
It happens. Is it fair? Depends on your definition of 'fair'. If that means everyone gets the free right to comment, and no one has the right to ban anyone from their parcels because they're 'public businesses' or something, then no, it's not fair. If you mean everyone gets the free right to comment on their own blogs, or leave comments on other blogs, and the people who own the businesses in SL can decide whether or not they want certain folks on those parcels...then yes, it's fair. Fair as anything else, I suppose. (And note, that is NOT my advocating a no-ban policy--by all means, keep to your bans! Hells, I'm banned on my own cognizance from a set of sims, never to visit more, because those individuals would rather I didn't go. I can do that; they're allowed to not want me there. And for the folks who can't seem to get the point, there are individual avatar bans, per parcel and per sim. That's what the ban system is for.)
Miss Ivey did end in a good mood, at least:
"I'm outie, ya'll have fun and whatever you do, be yourself. You don't have to conform to what anyone else says is cool, do what makes you comfy and happy and fuck anyone that tells you you should be anything else.
Vive la RESISTANCE!"
Absolutely. Go see SN@TCH if you want a chance at a rather primmy, but very pretty, gothic skybox. It even comes with bookshelves, a plant and a fireplace, all low-prim!
(Insert from the Editrix: leaving the link up, in case anyone's interested in retro--think 1950s, not 1850s--fashion with a modern twist, paired with your typical trash neko visions--but the skybox is long gone. Much much happened and I didn't end up getting this out until now.)
The main thing is, beyond any personal drama for whatever reason--we're in a recession. And while a lot of consumers on the grid are internationals, a lot of the makers of items on the grid are from the US. So we're coming up with anything we can to get people in our stores.
Some folks are discounting all older stock to cheap or free status--I'm looking to do that with my older designs in a bit, actually. And some folks toss up new stuph, old stuph, or on the cuff stock towards Wednesday sales (L$69), Friday sales (L$50) or various other forms (I've seen Tuesdays, Sundays, Mondays...) for several reasons. First, of course, is: a sale is a sale. Running something for L$69 or L$50 or L$25 means that item sold for that price. (I once paid rent on a 1024 parcel of Caledon for three straight months from a single Linden pack of madras textures on XStreetSL. Of course, that was before they cocked that entire system up, but that's not the point.)
And at this point, many of us just like making sales, period, rather than keep our going rates and not sell a thing.
And while these sales opportunities have never been my focus, as they are Miss Thiessam's, I, too, get disgruntled when it seems that it's a recycled piece of stable fodder trotted out again just because the designer had it lying around. (I have no problem with retints, and I am Miss Malaprop's target audience for striped stockings; I think I have half of all the stockings she's ever made--but I understand as well why someone might roll their eyes at "yet another retint" from makers like Schadenfreude and Silent Sparrow.)
What I think she doesn't realize is holding to all these varying sales can cause great strain on a designer. There you are, trying to get out your own releases of a week, and you now have the additional pressure of a specially marked item to get out as well. If you're very prolific--and not everyone is!--you can balance these disparate goals equably.
But if you're not...well, retints are going to sneak in. And sometimes that is not a bad thing--there was a point at which one designer I followed made everything she turned out for the group a particular shade of blue or pink. So that only the group gifts had that shade. It became a point of solidarity at group gatherings to see how many of us were in the group tones.
Or to take another example, Mr. Azriel Demain, the mind behind FallnAngel Designs--he generally picks one to three (and generally it's closer to two) shades for each hunt he organizes, and just about everything is in that shade. Yes, it's a tragedy if you decide to hunt for things when he picks deep gold, say, and your skin doesn't match deep gold; but at the least it's a way to try out his designs and decide if you'd like them in non-deep gold. (Which is sort of the point of hunts, to get an idea of how a maker designs, and whether or not you want more from that maker. I've found more than a few designers on the grid that way, actually.)
At one point--he's changed this policy now--he'd toss in hair in the hunts that was always in the Party shade--sort of a streaked pink/purple/black. It gave you an idea of what the hair looked like, on--back when he was new to making hair--and, if you really couldn't stand the Party tone, you wouldn't so much worry because nothing on the hair floor was in that tone if you really liked the style and wanted it in colors closer to, y'know, hair.
The point is, it's a lot of pressure on designers to produce. So once in a while they hit it out of the park--as I thought Miss Deschanel did with the Angel skybox--and sometimes it's a ground ball. We can't always predict what will catch on with people, after all, and some people are going to hate everything we do on principle. It happens.
Being a muckraker m'self on occasion, I can see both why Miss Thiessam feels she needs to tell people that the Emperor has no clothes, as well as see why Miss Deschanel took it personally and banned Thiessam from her stores. This also happens; fair or not, it's what we deal with on the grid. If we irritate more than we charm, we get banned. If we calm down, we can have a chance to get un-banned--but that's only if that maker has any interest in unbanning us.
Me, I'd just farm out photography to friends, and stop mentioning the banning every week, if I still wanted to cover all the stores on the sales days. And, if there was a store that I desperately wanted to retain access to, I'd contact the maker.
Like the time I got banned from Temenos due to a misunderstanding--I contacted Miss Zoe Llewelyn and explained my side of things, AND that I'd still be a loyal customer and send folks her way--because to this day, I adore her neko skins. And I got the ban reversed, for which I'm again thankful, to this day.
But that's me. And there are people I refuse to apologize to on general principle--and I'm still banned from those sims. I understand why, for the most part, and I accept that. Maybe it's more a case of acceptance in general--if what I say offends people, they have the Linden Labs-guaranteed right to ban me. Just as I have the blog-guaranteed right to complain. What I don't have the right to do is insist they reverse the ban because everyone should have access to their stores; because it's "unfair"; because it's a case of designers being overly sensitive, or whatever other excuse is being bandied about.
It's a ban. If you want access to that store, apologize. If the maker doesn't accept that, you tried. Move on. There are so many makers of so many things on the grid; why get tied up, incensed and enraged, over one? Move to the next three hundred.
Trust me on this. Both you--and your avatar--will live longer.
SN@TCH is one of the stranger businesses on the grid. Ivey Deschanel started her SL business with a single small store full of rockabilly sass and tattoo shirts. She's now expanded to a full sim and rents space to other merchants who are becoming equally well-known. She's part of the group that runs a highly successful--and usually deeply upsetting--haunted house every year, which changes themes but always offers something of a mystery to solve, some well-thought out design, and freebies along the way.
Her latest card advertising her 'Humpday' item this week featured this passage:
"Humpday Happiness is clouded this week by the lingering stink of some skank but don't let that deter you from shopping at all the fab places just cause a little scunge and her snot-nosed friends smeared her bad mojo on our fun."
The hell?
So I looked into it. Seems a Miss Penelope Thiessam got involved last week for the Humpday stores, all worked up because she's been banned at SN@TCH and doesn't even know why.
Well, I'm not entirely sure why, either--though I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say that posts like these, for better or worse, are likely what got her into this fix. Just as my posts on Step Up! got me banned at sims sympathetic to their cause.
It happens. Is it fair? Depends on your definition of 'fair'. If that means everyone gets the free right to comment, and no one has the right to ban anyone from their parcels because they're 'public businesses' or something, then no, it's not fair. If you mean everyone gets the free right to comment on their own blogs, or leave comments on other blogs, and the people who own the businesses in SL can decide whether or not they want certain folks on those parcels...then yes, it's fair. Fair as anything else, I suppose. (And note, that is NOT my advocating a no-ban policy--by all means, keep to your bans! Hells, I'm banned on my own cognizance from a set of sims, never to visit more, because those individuals would rather I didn't go. I can do that; they're allowed to not want me there. And for the folks who can't seem to get the point, there are individual avatar bans, per parcel and per sim. That's what the ban system is for.)
Miss Ivey did end in a good mood, at least:
"I'm outie, ya'll have fun and whatever you do, be yourself. You don't have to conform to what anyone else says is cool, do what makes you comfy and happy and fuck anyone that tells you you should be anything else.
Vive la RESISTANCE!"
Absolutely. Go see SN@TCH if you want a chance at a rather primmy, but very pretty, gothic skybox. It even comes with bookshelves, a plant and a fireplace, all low-prim!
(Insert from the Editrix: leaving the link up, in case anyone's interested in retro--think 1950s, not 1850s--fashion with a modern twist, paired with your typical trash neko visions--but the skybox is long gone. Much much happened and I didn't end up getting this out until now.)
The main thing is, beyond any personal drama for whatever reason--we're in a recession. And while a lot of consumers on the grid are internationals, a lot of the makers of items on the grid are from the US. So we're coming up with anything we can to get people in our stores.
Some folks are discounting all older stock to cheap or free status--I'm looking to do that with my older designs in a bit, actually. And some folks toss up new stuph, old stuph, or on the cuff stock towards Wednesday sales (L$69), Friday sales (L$50) or various other forms (I've seen Tuesdays, Sundays, Mondays...) for several reasons. First, of course, is: a sale is a sale. Running something for L$69 or L$50 or L$25 means that item sold for that price. (I once paid rent on a 1024 parcel of Caledon for three straight months from a single Linden pack of madras textures on XStreetSL. Of course, that was before they cocked that entire system up, but that's not the point.)
And at this point, many of us just like making sales, period, rather than keep our going rates and not sell a thing.
And while these sales opportunities have never been my focus, as they are Miss Thiessam's, I, too, get disgruntled when it seems that it's a recycled piece of stable fodder trotted out again just because the designer had it lying around. (I have no problem with retints, and I am Miss Malaprop's target audience for striped stockings; I think I have half of all the stockings she's ever made--but I understand as well why someone might roll their eyes at "yet another retint" from makers like Schadenfreude and Silent Sparrow.)
What I think she doesn't realize is holding to all these varying sales can cause great strain on a designer. There you are, trying to get out your own releases of a week, and you now have the additional pressure of a specially marked item to get out as well. If you're very prolific--and not everyone is!--you can balance these disparate goals equably.
But if you're not...well, retints are going to sneak in. And sometimes that is not a bad thing--there was a point at which one designer I followed made everything she turned out for the group a particular shade of blue or pink. So that only the group gifts had that shade. It became a point of solidarity at group gatherings to see how many of us were in the group tones.
Or to take another example, Mr. Azriel Demain, the mind behind FallnAngel Designs--he generally picks one to three (and generally it's closer to two) shades for each hunt he organizes, and just about everything is in that shade. Yes, it's a tragedy if you decide to hunt for things when he picks deep gold, say, and your skin doesn't match deep gold; but at the least it's a way to try out his designs and decide if you'd like them in non-deep gold. (Which is sort of the point of hunts, to get an idea of how a maker designs, and whether or not you want more from that maker. I've found more than a few designers on the grid that way, actually.)
At one point--he's changed this policy now--he'd toss in hair in the hunts that was always in the Party shade--sort of a streaked pink/purple/black. It gave you an idea of what the hair looked like, on--back when he was new to making hair--and, if you really couldn't stand the Party tone, you wouldn't so much worry because nothing on the hair floor was in that tone if you really liked the style and wanted it in colors closer to, y'know, hair.
The point is, it's a lot of pressure on designers to produce. So once in a while they hit it out of the park--as I thought Miss Deschanel did with the Angel skybox--and sometimes it's a ground ball. We can't always predict what will catch on with people, after all, and some people are going to hate everything we do on principle. It happens.
Being a muckraker m'self on occasion, I can see both why Miss Thiessam feels she needs to tell people that the Emperor has no clothes, as well as see why Miss Deschanel took it personally and banned Thiessam from her stores. This also happens; fair or not, it's what we deal with on the grid. If we irritate more than we charm, we get banned. If we calm down, we can have a chance to get un-banned--but that's only if that maker has any interest in unbanning us.
Me, I'd just farm out photography to friends, and stop mentioning the banning every week, if I still wanted to cover all the stores on the sales days. And, if there was a store that I desperately wanted to retain access to, I'd contact the maker.
Like the time I got banned from Temenos due to a misunderstanding--I contacted Miss Zoe Llewelyn and explained my side of things, AND that I'd still be a loyal customer and send folks her way--because to this day, I adore her neko skins. And I got the ban reversed, for which I'm again thankful, to this day.
But that's me. And there are people I refuse to apologize to on general principle--and I'm still banned from those sims. I understand why, for the most part, and I accept that. Maybe it's more a case of acceptance in general--if what I say offends people, they have the Linden Labs-guaranteed right to ban me. Just as I have the blog-guaranteed right to complain. What I don't have the right to do is insist they reverse the ban because everyone should have access to their stores; because it's "unfair"; because it's a case of designers being overly sensitive, or whatever other excuse is being bandied about.
It's a ban. If you want access to that store, apologize. If the maker doesn't accept that, you tried. Move on. There are so many makers of so many things on the grid; why get tied up, incensed and enraged, over one? Move to the next three hundred.
Trust me on this. Both you--and your avatar--will live longer.
Comments
I agree if it's a single store and you do something that you know. I hate when people ban you from stores/sims or whatever and NEVER tell you why and you're sitting in the dark so much that you try to contact other people to find out why and they mute you. o.O
Now of course I am referring to the sim I mostly hate Thib. Unfortunately the owner of the sim is never around or seems to care as long as they make their money, so they leave their sim in charge of a certain...'person'. Now normally I didn't like them or their creations or really care.
But I did support and like many of the stores on there, who only seem to have stores on that sim. Now that the 'person' decided to do that I could NEVER shop at these stores or support them again. It caused and still causes me a lot of grief because I don't hate the shop owners or content creators for making a poor choice on where to have their shop, but now I can no longer support them.
My first reaction was to contact the estate manager and find out why, all I got was 'you cause drama'. Now I have to admit I run my own blong where I ranted about furry problems, such as no mod shoes, etc. etc. Now did I cause any drama or say anything to the shops or owners on that one sim? Heck no, I silently supported them like most customers and even brought them business.
But then this all went down and everyone I tried to contact to get a straight story ended up listening to what I had to say, talked to that 'person', then muted me and if they were a store owner removed me from their suscribe-o in some cases. o.O
Now do I still try to support some of these shops, sure if they have locations elsewhere. Do I still hold a grudge against them for this immature behavior, yup. It may be childish behavior but I expect people to run their stores like a RL store and not a child with their thumb stuck up their--ahem.
But regardless, I do think people have a right to say their opinion and deal with the reprocussions from such. Do I think owners should be able to ban on a whim for no reason, and that situations should be taken up with LL if it's a mall type sim/situation? Yeah, I actually think there should be some sorta assistance with that.
I do realize that it's not what they're supposed to do and probably no one in their right mind would agree with me but alas tis how I feel. XD Thanks for puttin up with a long comment and good point Emi.
But I agree on the Thibedeau point--it's a gorgeous little sim, and I love the stores there, and you're right, some of--if not all of--the stores on that sim aren't anywhere else. It would be like someone banning me from Victoria City--I could find Silver Rose elsewhere, sure, but there are other businesses that are only there.
I'm still trying to figure out the 'you cause drama' angle, though, Serenity. Pick six random entries from my blog and six from yours and I will guarantee that your blog will come off as helpful and fun and informative, and mine will come off as bitchy, ranting and insensitive. If not downright cryptic. Yet you're banned from more places than I am.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a contest, I like that I'm not banned from many places, but still, it's odd.
Though that's also a good point--if you're a designer, and you're going to ban someone, and that's the only store parcel you have, fine. But if you're a designer, and you own your own sim, and there are other designers renting from you, you should at least IM them, drop a notecard, something--because you're not only banning X avatar from your stores, you're banning them from every other retailer on your sim.
Well, that's only what they deserve, it's their tough luck, you might say. And personally, you might be right. But professionally, sim bans--especially if you can just ban X avatar from the one store, not the whole region--don't make sense.
Ban that person from your store, fine. But all the other stores? Unless they also want to ban that person, that's just a cheap use of the ban system, and more than a little childish.
Recently, as due to the insisting of Sanu, she suggested I try to be appart of that seasonal bazaar expo that you may remember.
Prudence Skytower I think it is, is in charge of that. So I politely applied an application. This very day as I go to check that her store theory. (which is a cute store I would've liked to shop at) is on Thib. And I check her profile and low and behold the next bazaars are only cohosted by her and the person that caused me so much grief - and now they're going to be hosted on the sim next door to Thib which I'm not allowed on either.
Now granted, I really wish I could point this out to the creators and say hey this person is being a d00sh for no reason and is probably going to lie to you about me and I could start some stupid campaign, but instead I sent a message to Pru saying take me off your suscribe-o please as I cannot go to the sim your store is on.
Now she might ask said 'head honcho' about that and that person will probably continue to spread lies about me. I don't know what to do in this situation but all I can say is, I hope someone puts them in their goddam place someday. :s Mind you btw I'm only banned from 3 sims my whole SL life, the 2 shitty thib related ones and the third being some psycho who thought I was cheating on a hunt while at the same time I was in her hunt group asking for help (you may remember the old treasure hunt grid hunt a longgggg time ago, I think they ended it). XDDD
"You're cheating! Even though I can't figure out how, because you're not using any scripted 'finding' item, and no one else is porting you in, but you're finding the things I hid so well so you must be cheating..."
Bah.
The Thib thing just continues to be mental. There has to be a way around that, eventually...