I'll spin you Valentine evenings though we're strangers 'til now

Things are happening in the background. I'm not willing to fully relax, yet, but--if all works out as it's been proposed, we may well not only keep Gearhaven, but I'll be working to redecorate at least part of it. But it's early stages yet, so...nothing, even the stones, are set in stone.



In the meantime, there's a new group gift at /Vae Victis\! A variant on the Fenrisulfr stole set, this time in Vaporwave tones, with a specific set of hues for the HUD.



So I'm in Heartsong Shores' Neo-Kowloon alleys to show it off.

So same thing as last time--the Female Unrigged for the stole, and the Male version for the skulls this time. Both texture and tint for the skulls are off the chart, frankly. So vibrant, all the wau factor. I never thought blacklight UV could be carried off in SL, but...this is close.



What's it like in all the Byxian pinks? Just as wild.



Silly as it may sound, I think the original version is far more customizeable, overall--this one I can't manage to figure out how to make the skulls smaller without making them non-functional with the chain addition--but I think I like this one better. This could be because it goes so well with the raver girl avatar, though.



I don't have pictures of this, mind, but I spent the next several hours in the stole set. It made me smile.



Anyway, you want this? You can't get it at any event. It's just available as a New Year's group gift at the main store. But it's a really fun group, if that matters!



And of course the amusement went off the charts when I ported to the main store for the link to give out, and ended up looking washed out by the SAVAGE pink tones of the ground. (Believe: this is just standard unrezzed mesh, it's just funny because I was in UV-radiant tones, the stole was in UV-radiant tones, and I went to the main store and it decided to join the madness. I laughed, the party laughed, the table laughed...then we killed the table.)

(Sorry--really old D and D joke.)

Come join the group if you want the Vaporwave edition of the Fenrisulfr stole for free. The water's fine. Also occasionally laden with piranha, bugs, and Kamen Rider-obsessed trapbots, but...that just comes with the territory, really. You'll be fiiiiiiine.

itamoo Steampunk would fit right in, if that tells you anything. (And no, not entirely sure whether that's a good thing, or terrifying. As with so many things in my life, it's likely both.)

Obligatory occasional run-down of everything else:

Eyes: Inheart's Hades - Toxic Green System+mesh set: discounted on MP due to age (but I still think they work)
Hair: Misty II, which I seem to recall was a group gift from Olive (but either way, it's at their mainstore)
Skin: The frustrating one, it's this year's holiday gift from Fallen Gods, so unless you're already in the group, I don't think this particular shade will be available (but for what it's worth, it's one of the Pure shades, Odyssey).
Jacket: 28LA's Pride Fur, black variant (I don't know if this one's available either).
Top: The Catharina halter from First Choice
Leggings/Leg Harness: Combat Leggings and Harness set from Demon Doll
Makeup: Old now, but the eyes are the FreeBees Glam Eyeshadow set in Berry (maybe on the MP store?), and the Metallic Lips in Mystic from StarGazer, originally, now might be carried at MACA?
Shoes: The Thick Block Heels from PIXEL BOX
Shape: My own, adulterated in seventeen different ways
Body: Maitreya.

because with that look I know so well I fall completely under your spell

The sim was called The Apartments. The blurb was just as strange:

"Hallways, endless rain and cats
lots and lots of cats."

Right. Let's go see.



Well, I see the cats. I also see the rain.



And apparently occasional catfights.



What the hell is that outside??



The cats don't like it either.



There's a lot of Blade Runner feel to this sim. Blade Runner, Fifth Element, techno-noir designs, some actual brand names used, some mock brand names. It definitely presents a defined look. Not just cyberpunk, but that specific, the-air-is-water, we-never-see-true-sunlight setting.



All in all, if anyone needs a vaguely futuristic urban setting for photographs or roleplay, this may be ideal? It's a mildly interesting wander, if nothing else, with the rain pouring steadily outside, the occasional meows heard, and the mazelike narrow warren of interconnecting hallways of a multiple-unit, multiple-floor, multiple-block apartment building.

Go see if you're curious. Bring catnip.

home is the needle and thread for the hole in the lifeboat that it put you in

So, between one thing and another, if I continue doing two haunt entries a day, I'll need six more, plus this one, to finish out the month. And I already feel like I'm scraping the very bottom of the holiday barrel, here. It's kind of depressing. But I will soldier on, I just may drop to one haunt covered per day.



In other news...why? I mean, seriously, why? Does Flickr think I'm not a native English speaker? Because this would make sense if I were from France or Uruguay or the Congo. It makes no sense when I was born in the US, raised monolingually, and, for the most part (outside of a smattering of words here and there) remain monolingual? I don't understand.

In the meantime, we're doing PULSE's Hallows event! And...it's a strange one this year. From their notecard:

"You are an average office worker in the year 2037 living in the shining city of Neo-Innsmouth, Massachusetts. Recently plagued by nightmares and fits of insomnia, and a strange 'dry eye' syndrome, concerned higher ups have sent you to a Psychological Institute called Arkham. It is said they use experimental treatments to aid the afflicted. It is a busy center, or so they say. Even in the future, life is just as stressful...."

Just so everyone knows going in. There usually are disturbing images, disturbing bits of story, gore and the like in these events.



So, the game starts off by walking into the doctor's office, and sitting down for the exam. Next thing you know, you're...here, and nothing at all makes sense. And the game is on.



Why...why is there a goat? Why is the goat eating a fish??



WHY ARE THERE DEAD GOATS??



Every City Hall looks like this, right?



Why...why are you whispering? Why aren't you moving? What's going on?!?



And why is the doctor a hologram? She wasn't before...



There's still room for humor here and there. There are some puzzles, but solutions can be found, or in a pinch--the very first one, I had to use this option--you can join the in-world Pulse Games group and ask for help there. Nothing is impossible, just...arcane and mysterious.

The HUD to play--which is required--costs L$50, and lets you record both your game progress and keep track of where you stopped, if you have to restart. (By that I mean, it will remember game points, but if you port away and don't take a landmark back to where you were, you'll have to start from the beginning.)

But some caveats--Ivey, one of the game designers, usually throws the HUD free the last week, because she and her team really put their heart and soul into this. They want everyone who wants to, to go through. And there are tons of prizes to find, this year in the form of little fish. They are everywhere; I'm fairly sure I didn't find all of them, and I came home with 59 prizes! Everything from gowns to eyes to furnishings to tattoos. Mostly tilted female, but don't worry, guys, there are some male and unisex items, too.

But I won't lie, this one is...odd. I've gone through it one time all the way through, and ported back to start from scratch just to search for fish, and I'm probably going back at least once more, because I don't entirely get the story. When I say arcane, I meean arcane in the old sense--enigmatic, baffling, incomprehensible to mortal minds. I get the basics--I'm just lost on how exactly it lines up with why I, a lowly clerk, went to be examined in the first place.

But it is fun, spooky, eerie, rings changes on both cyberpunk and Lovecraftian themes, and challenging without being impossible. Do go if you have a couple hours to kill (assuming you want to find all the prizes). And leave no stone unturned--you'll want to explore everywhere you can get to. And I, at least, through a combination of climbing and leaping, was able to get to quite a lot...

watch your step with flex, and get a hole in your side

We were going to write an awesome notecard, buuuut someone beat us to the announcement. =P It's been a fantastic ride, and we ♥ the deviants — it's just time to move on to other things. But hey - CLEARANCE SALE. =D Everything in the store is marked down to 50L, so make sure to grab whatever you want before it's gone. :) We'll be here for 3-4 weeks still. Thanks SO much for supporting us and being awesome for so long. You made SL rock. :)

So, this entry is going to be entirely concerned with WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!? Because I have no idea. NOOOO idea. First I heard of this was tonight, and the first thing I did is pull up their website, which is now GONE by the way. And there's a rumor from chat that they're handing off sponsorship of the Twisted Hunt?

Yeah, I'm back on I have no idea. Marketplace glitching? Sim lag? Tired of being the premier cybergoth repository? Your guess is as good as mine, because I know nothing more than I've linked here.

More news when I get it...if I get it. I'll let you know.

forged in the black country, under blood red skies

Fans of Fallout? Want to show off that fandom in a quirky way? How about Nuka-Cola artifacts from the wastelands? Man, talk about making the digital real. She does great work.

And building in Mikela Isle, I came across this:



My mind tells me--due to the price tag and the name both--that this is never something Earalia Nolan wanted released for ten Lindens. But my mind also tells me that whenever this was ripped, it was ripped a long time ago, because nano prims are fairly common now.

Still. Marked as L$800. For sale for L$10. Hmm.

(I am also amused at the yellow text to the side: "Prims are small because of well crafted sculpty maps, NOT illegal hacking". Good to know. Considering this ad was quite likely illegally hacked. Oh, the irony.)

It's looking very likely that we'll see a big-screen version of Neuromancer sometime soon--director Vincenzo Natali has the rights and is actively looking for funding, apparently.

As much as Gibson dismissed Neuromancer in the early days, it was one of the first solid codifiers of what was, at a gut level, recognized as cyberpunk--the decaying vestiges of the old world seen and sold for trinkets, influence of another culture (alternatively Russian or Chinese, depending on the idea and the author), the freefall of morality and militarization, the highest of high tech in the lowest of low places. And it started things, my gods, did it start things. Not only two more books from Gibson set in the same universe, nearly the same city, but several other authors had Chiba City encodings stamped on their imagination sets.

Now, Natali is a fairly new director; most of his work credits are for storyboarding, art panels (notably, he is listed as a storyboard artist for Johnny Mnemonic, though he's uncredited in the film itself). But there is one additional nod to something that could be very interesting for Neuromancer: Natali directed Cube.



Cube was, gore aside, very much a thinking person's horror film. It wasn't so much about the moments of terror--and there were moments of terror--as much as it was involved in heavy social commentary. Namely: when we are stripped of everything we rely upon, who are we?



This is necessary terrain for Neuromancer. In the net, on the grid, on the wire--who are we away from meat and bone? Who are we but the words we use to present ourselves, the emotions we display, the pixel looks we choose? When we cannot look at another being and read them, eye to eye, we rely on what we're being shown. And at times, what we're being shown is flawed simply because it's something other than who we are.



It's been a few years since I saw Cube, honestly, and I'd managed to completely forget David Hewlett was in it. But the point still stands: Cube is, at its heart, less about the Saw-like traps and tangles, and much more about the people trapped in the heart of the device: what happens when we are cut loose from our moorings? What happens when we have to judge quickly, and realize even a casual mistake could equal death? Of what value are the guiding rules of our societies, we are asked, when life is on the line? How soon do those ethical trappings fade away?

What are we, when we are reduced to fear, and anxiety, and the need to survive?

Cube tells us, over and over, two things: that we are beings that choose five minutes more of panic-stricken life, over dying nobly, virtually any day of the week; and that we are beings who profoundly do not think ahead to possible future outcomes. One of the people trapped in the Cube, after all, is the fellow who designed it--and never thought, beyond that moment, about the future use of such an object.

Overall, I think this is a good time for Neuromancer to make an appearance, and I think Natali is an excellent choice for director. I'll be watching for news of the film as it goes on.

Speaking of matters digital, apparently, there's an excellent cyberstalking app that's been released for the iPhone. It makes it so much easier to find out exactly where one's victim has eaten, where he or she works, where he or she is likely to go, and her likes and dislikes. Is that what the developers of the Foursquare app wanted? Not likely. But it's what they have.

And finally, a bit of funny to end this missive with: the Write Sex blog's take on Mulder and Scully, and the modern death of tease in paranormal fiction. Torchwood is mentioned at the end; for Torchwood fans? It's worth reading just for that sublime little pay-off.