Australopithecus would really have been sick of us

City of Heroes--it's kind of like this.

Some days it's weirder--my signature character, if you will, on City of Heroes has a black and white color scheme. And I mean that--black and white brocade top, black with white designs Korean kickboxer pants, Chinese black silk slippers and white tabi socks, white-and-black stranded hair, black-and-white horns. White skin. (Red eyes--my sole concession to the fact that other colors exist.)

She's very monochromatic.

So, there's this thing around level 20 where the character is given a chance to adventure for the right to wear a cape. And they have all sorts--full capes, half-capes, one-shoulder capes, squared off, scalloped, asymmetrical...

So. Imagine. This character. My hero. After her grand adventure defending Paragon City, and fighting back the evil Rikti aliens for possession of Hero 1's (yes, you heard right) dying letter to his city, his queen (he was British) and his country...She went to the fashion house to pick out her cape. Her very own cape. She was shown silk and wool and oilcloth, demicloaks and full cloaks, and was told no dream was too large, no idea too insane (after they saw her bank balance, that was). They could design it in any color combination, any symbol, just name it, anything, at all...Just pick one, any one, and they would turn it into her dream cloa--

And she pointed. To what she wanted. In the back. On a costume mannequin. A black...and white...striped...scarf.

So now my character? Is proudly adventuring in a striped scarf. I'm laughing hysterically over this.

In other news...Based on a thread I started on SL Universe, the Lindens might be looking at Urban Dictionary for their censorship efforts. If that's true, then we might as well plan to see these terms blocked soon, too:

#3
angry dolphin
angry dragon
an hero
alaskan pipeline
arabian goggles
banana
barbed surprise
bare 10
becky
byrd
cabbage babbage
cake
cobra yawn
dome

That would hit sculpt artists, steampunks, wildlife breeders, the roleplaying community, fruit sellers, dragon keepers...anyone I leave out? And this is just a cursory overview. I wasn't doing that much research, just skimming the surface of the surface, of the more than two million words on that site...

Note for the curious: you don't want to know what those mean. Hells, I don't want to know what those mean.

But if any of those do pop on the "Adult"-rated word lists? I may need to get very, very drunk...

I keep meaning to get back to the Jira That Will Not Die, but in the meantime, Soft Linden has a very important message, added the evening of March 7, 2011:

A number of you have ARd or sent notes about the other system we removed from the marketplace, pointing out that the creator plans to continue operating in violation of ToS. Stay tuned, and I'll make sure folks understand this internally.

In the mean time, if you see one of his resale vendors, you should Abuse Report the vendor's owner. File the AR against the object's owner whether the vendor is owned by the creator, an alt of the creator, or set out by others for commission. For the AR type, select "Harassment->Soliciting/Inciting others to Violate ToS." Feel free to add a link to this comment.

As always, file ARs based on first-hand knowledge. There's nothing wrong with peers filing additional ARs to underscore importance. However, each person filing should take a close look and ensure they understand the object of the AR and how they would personally justify the AR if asked.

Obviously, the bold inserts are mine own; but I think they're important to point out. Namely: zFire is still putting RedZone back on the market, even when the Lindens take it down in person (that happened, both on the Marketplace and in world); Soft at least says there's going to be an understanding in Linden Labs of what this means to the residents on the grid; and finally, that people who send in ARs for RedZone (and by extension, any other products/people they're abuse-reporting) should really give thought to whether they want to do that; abuse reports are not frivolous things.

That last mainly tells me that they want accountability on this issue; which also generally (though not always) means that someone with some name cred threatened legal action. Now, I may be wrong in this, but something else is going on. They're making very sure--or, at least, Soft is making very sure--to phrase things distinctly and accurately.

On the other hand, this is all still boiling over on the JIRA. Has there been one single blog post (which few people read, as well) over this? One perky little mention on the Marketplace or on the main Second Life site? (No; they're too busy gushing over vampires.) Or maybe a line on log-in, you know, like THEY NEVER DID WITH ZINDRA--

Sorry. *coughs* Got away from me there for a bit.

Anyway, things are still moving towards an endgame; sadly, we're not there yet. And there's more badness to come. Stay safe out there.