took my breath away, knocked me flat on my back

Emotions get heavy from time to time. Our fears, our worries, general anxieties over our situations, our relationships, employment, the world...It can take a toll not just on us, but on those that care for us. That heavy weight, dragging down everything we do...

Welcome to the Vineyard Terrace.



This is not going to be the typical review (I mean, do I give typical reviews? But I digress); even so, the "Typhon" horns have earned their descriptives--they are very adorned, and they are monstrously oversized.



Straight out of the box, unmodified in any way, they barely fit me. This is not to say only men can wear them--anyone can, if they're drawn to these. After all, find a way, or make one--so make sure yours are modifiable.

Everything Vae Victis sells is, after all. But it does present a challenge--because they have crystal gems depending from rope drops, so that seems to point in a direction for 'gravity'. And yes, this is SL, there is no gravity when not dealing with physical prims, but even there, it's just programming that causes the drop.



Apparently, some of the information boards will give notecards! That's a nifty feature.

I mean...you know, I really had a point when I started out on this. The heavy weight of emotions, of hearts, of even unattached things, because things have their own unique dragging weight (as anyone who still has a storage room filled with boxes well knows). But...

I mean, the information boards. Solid info on swamps, and swamp ecosystems, how they act as water filtration, trapping many chemicals and metals before the water runs clean again...and they had another feature, which I may return to and make another entry--because as I walked past, the info boards rezzed into visibility. I clicked for the card, read through it, and moved on down the path...and the board faded back into invisibility.

As I said, very nifty feature.

And as it turns out, I thought this dark navy was a dark green, for the current avatar tones--but, hey, navy still works.



Before the third picture, by the way, I reduced the horns down by -20. They are still huge, but I think they fit a bit better. (On me, mind.) But I should also point out something else--the colors are...not the expected ones, let's say, on the tinting HUD.

Some are the colors we expect--smooth, even tones layered over the mesh. Some...arent', showing up as ombre tones, or lightly burned tones, or something else entirely from what we've come to expect. This is not at all a complaint--far from it. There's so many color variations to play with.



I am loving PBR Materials, while we're shooting through the window of this little swamp shack--the patterns you see on the inside of the metal bars? Those move when the light source changes--so, clouds drifting by, birds passing between the 'sun' obscure in their own way...



Neat, innit?

[[Yeah, no, I was WAY off on this one. PBR hadn't been implemented yet, this was just Advanced Materials lighting. That's my bad. Still cool, but PBR is an entirely different animal.]]



And say hi to the trio of HUDs for all the options. With a codicil (which, rats, I forgot to show): the slide panel on the bottom of the far-right HUD. That one controls, if I'm remembering correctly, the settings around each gem, the cuffs, the metal accents that link up the ropes--then, simply click that little sliding buckle, and there you are with all the settings for the gems.

(I freely admit, I didn't take the most careful notes. I was too enchanted wandering the sim, so my initial mordant reflection on trials and tribulations never had a chance. I had forgotten how...it's going to sound odd, but...serene swampland is. And this sim may do the best job of capturing it in SL--the slow lap of water against piers, the brief splash of a fish (or a gator, depending) farther from shore. The little chorus of tree peepers calling out to each other through the brack.)

The one thing I do know is you should check out the picture of Grim wearing them. And looking perfectly unbowed. You can find them in the /Vae Victis\ booth at Abnormality's current round. I'll update this when I traipse over at my next opportunity!

[[As I'm putting this together to publish, something about the structure of the horns, the bases, with the planes of Grim's skull...likely nothing but a fancy, but--that reminded me pwerfully of Lord Darkness, from 1985's Legend. So, y'know, if anyone feels like striding out on human--skull sized hooves to seduce a lady into killing a unicorn...These may be your horns.]]

dark necessities are part of my design

up on Melancholy Hill, there's a plastic tree
are you here with me?



I don't...I've never been able to un-love, easily. There are nights I envy those who can throw others aside blithely; that's never been me. I love until it's--emotionally, psychologically, sometimes physically--beaten out of me, and even then...I love, but distantly. I love, but I know I've lost. I love, but I mourn.

"just looking out on the day of another dream
where you can't get what you want, but you can get me



Tonight has a flavor of more, because there has been another loss. It's not just the one I can't have; it's the one bright, shining spark who deserved more time. But can't we all say that, at some point? Still, Ktahdn has passed, and it hit me hard enough I can't imagine the level of grieving for those closer. He was...art with a pulse, in a lot of ways. Living thread of music and sculpture and words. And he will be missed.

so let's set out to sea, love
'cause you are my medicine when you're close to me
when you're close to me



In the interim of hearing the news, and feeling the loss of presence, if nothing else, of a lot of loves...I've been building. I finally finished the shore path I started in 2021 and never got back to. Now it leads from the front of the garden, down to the Fish and Whistle, the new pub by the fishing area. Linkages slowly forming, day by day. And the island in the Dark Sea got leveled in a mis-click, so...I raised a new one. But before, it was a gentle swell of curve, and now...well. Now it's an imposing bluff. Bit higher than I intended.

so call in the submarines, 'round the world we'll go
does anybody know, love
if we're looking out on the day of another dream?



Still, now it has a path too. It's a bit trickier coming down, than going up, because of the steep angle, but that's also why there's a fence. So no one falls off who doesn't want to.

Sometimes everyone falls, though, in spite of our best intentions.

if you can't get what you want, then you come with me



At the top it's much the same as it was before--sheltering trees, a place to stop and rest, the drifting fog between the standing stones. I removed the memorial that used to be up there, as well--though that was designed by Alia for Finn, when he passed, so...maybe it's time that returns. Not sure yet.

up on Melancholy Hill
sits the manatee, love



In other removalist news, there's only one thing left on the Krakenstorm sim, and after the owner of that ship is contacted, and removes it, it will likely be returning to the Linden mists. Though there has been a nibble of interest in renting it--we'll see where that goes, but honestly, I think we'll end up losing it. Going from five sims, down to three, now that New Alexandria's renter has moved on. Passages, transitions, losses. We're in the thick of them.

just looking out for the day when you're close to me
when you're close to me



The one bit of good news in all of this--Darkmere rises, and its denizens return. Which is kind of funny--its duke and master has been a friend for so long, but he'd wandered from the grid for several years. Still, when he returned, word went out, and his people joined him. And I'd met only a handful, once or twice, most I never met in all those long years between the then, and the now, but--they've become some of the joys of my virtual life. Scrim Pinion is such a talent, and he, like Violet, always introduces me to some new song, or new musical group, that then I must dig up and learn more about. Lilly his lovely wife, quieter, gothically amused, but also a joy to spend time with. Diana their reprobate third, eternally searching for new shops (an affliction I share) and the highest of surfaces to sit upon (an affliction I don't). Mourna, shy but present, Vertigo, all fire and electric energy, Charlemagne the genuinely maddened, but in good ways...and still the likeliest candidate to crash a sim on pure accident...(Scrim calls Chaz' inventory a level one cognitohazard. He's likely not wrong. Chaz reminds me palpably of Stiv of the before times, the long-lost dead god of Enigma)...and all the rest...They're good people. Fun people. Funny, not infrequently. And most of them had left the grid, too.

Suppose that shows you the pull one person can have.

when you're close to me...

Now I just need to find ways to lessen the pull.

(The song lyrics used are from "On Melancholy Hill", of course, by the Gorillaz, from the Plastic Beach album released in 2010. Though this one might also be apropos...even if I can't figure out if I'm him, or her, in this scenario. Maybe I'm both...which is far from comforting.)

you have to understand that the one I killed is me

the sky is a neighborhood
so keep it down...

I'm here again. Why am I here again? Why is there never enough air when I'm here?



heart is a storybook
a star burned out...

I wander funereal zones, feeling half-buried myself. Everything is far too loud in my head, and far, far too quiet outside it.



the sky is a neighborhood
don't make a sound
lights comin' up ahead
don't look now--

I seek out the wild places, hoping to find calm. I seek out memorials to tell myself I am not the only one suffering loss, but...it's only depressing me further. I'm...stuck.



oh, my dear, heaven is a big bang now
gotta get to sleep somehow
bangin' on the ceiling
bangin' on the ceiling
keep it down--

Even going through a haunted maze didn't cheer me up. This is...bad.



mind is a battlefield
all hope is gone
trouble to the right and left
whose side you're on?

Breathing ash again...this is familiar. The torn and bloodied sky. Very familiar. And every time, every single time I think I can park the train forever and just leave it to rust...the train wreck comes roaring back towards me.

And I'm still naive enough to be surprised.



thoughts like a minefield
I'm a tickin' bomb
maybe you should watch your step
don't get lost

Playing tag with past ghosts...I've been here before, too. Pain always echoes, especially this soul-deep.



heart is a storybook
a star burned out
somethin' comin' up ahead
don't look now--

We're told, when we can't see the solution to something where we are, to change our perspective. It doesn't seem to be working. Maybe the change needs to be deeper, this time. Maybe it needs to alter me, not just my view.



oh, my dear, heaven is a big bang now
gotta get to sleep somehow
bangin' on the ceiling
bangin' on the ceiling
keep it down...

I don't know what forms will come out of this. Maybe nothing at all. Maybe it's just going to be the walls don't come down, again, and...there's something in that that's kin to swallowing acid, because--I fought so hard, for years, to dismantle them. But maybe better boundaries are needed.

Because I'm feeling less sane by the moment, so...reconfiguration, of some sort. It's coming.

the sky is a neighborhood...

I just don't know how much it's going to hurt.

(Lyrics taken from The Sky is a Neighborhood by the Foo Fighters, off their album Concrete and Gold. Otherwise, the entry was written to Everything is Moving So Fast by Great Lake Swimmers, The Long One by the Beatles {[which as a remix comprises You Never Give Me Your Money, Sun King, Mean Mr. Money, Her Majesty, Polythene Pam, She Came Through the Bathroom Window, Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, and The End], Spirit in the Sky by KEiiNO, Evil by Interpol, and Crooked Still's Ain't No Grave. Shots taken in Caledon On Sea, Atheneum, the Endless Graveyard, the Dollhouse Forest, Living Echoes, and Mythspire Ridge. [Atheneum, Living Echoes and Mythspire being Fantasy Faire sims this year.])

but now it's gone, they say it doesn't matter anymore

(Note from the Editrix: Because these are mounting, sadly, I'm going to start generally indicating when they were written, as opposed to published. This one is from the 16th of July, with an additional note added once the entry on the 21st was published.)

(Additional insert from the Editrix: Something to remember.)

Oh, I probably still have a handful of these left in me, but as I mentioned, they're going to become more scattershot, and they have. When reflection hits, I'll put one together and try to organize my thoughts enough to figure out my thinking. But I doubt there's any more bombshell revelations to be had; the last one posted on the 21st, I think that's where it's going to stay.



I took my love, I took it down
I climbed a mountain and I turned around
and I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
'til the landslide brought me down

Still, reflection hit today. While I value melancholy, I do not, oddly enough, consider myself primarily melancholic. (There's a hefty scoop of morbidity in my makeup, but that's different.) But, these days, drifting melancholy is becoming fairly constant. It's not eating holes in me yet, so I'm...basically...fine.



oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
can the child within my heart rise above?

No.

That wasn't an answer to the question, that was an answer to the lighthouse. As far as that goes, we hold all ages within us. Only the people who forget they ever had a childhood believe they don't, and frankly, they have more problems than dealing with emotions on a childlike level. Because that's really what it comes down to, and children are surprisingly honest until they're taught not to be so. What they feel, for the most part, they feel completely, intensely, with a total focus as well as total abandon.

It's only as adults that we practice repression of emotion, practice channeling what we feel away from others and off our faces. Or maybe that's just me.



can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
can I handle the seasons of my life?

That is ever the question. And I'm still searching for the answer. Sitting in various places around the grid, though, is helping me with perspective, at least.



well, I've been afraid of changing
'cause I've built my life around you
but time makes you bolder
even children get older
and I'm getting older too

I said no.

I don't build my life around people anymore. I used to--I still function largely with the trope of supports, be they barnacle-encrusted wooden pilings or flying buttresses of dark stone--but I no longer completely center people as the sole focus point (or in my case, group of focus points). Because it's almost not survivable when they leave.

Now, things are far from that dramatic now, and even that bare handful of times it happened before, I was long past the searching for knives stage. But it did hurt. It hurt deeply. Supports fractured, walls shattered, at least twice my entire personality broke apart, and I had to reconstruct from scratch. (Not my favorite thing, 1/10 would not recommend.)



oh, take my love, take it down
oh, climb a mountain and turn around
and if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
well, the landslide will bring it down

...Linden lands are strange.

But see? I'm not wrong. Sometimes pianos just fall out of the sky in places. Never stop watching the skies. One could be up there, just waiting for the right moment...anywhere.

I've had far too many pianos fall on me.



and if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills
well, the landslide will bring it down, oh oh
the landslide will bring it down

I said no.

Seriously, what? What is it? Is this just leftover poking, or did I manage to somehow miss something else huge again? I can't take much more in the nature of revelation, I really can't; I'm at my limit as it is.

And I am not breaking things further down this weekend, not after they've finally started to settle. No. Point your light somewhere else, I'm not looking.

(Pictures taken at Luzon, Momenti Rubati, Ravennhart, the Temple of Iris, Waterhead and the L-Shaped Lake. Lyrics are from Fleetwood Mac's Landslide.)