you're wearing your anguish again

This is just breathtaking. Ms. Siyu Suen is selling the Odocoleinae antlers for a scant few more days, before taking this limited holiday release off the market.

You can find Ms. Suen's blog entry here, or simply port directly to her store in-world.

In other news...Last night, we 'waked' another part of Caledon history, Caledon Loch Avie, Duchess Eva Bellambi's home on the grid. Several dozen of us gathered to dance in the Conservatory and out on the snow-covered lawn, to share hope and memories, song and stories, and dance until the sun fell and misty dawn emerged.

There were tears and laughter, promises of good changes to come, as well as mourning the loss of the past, and the final announcement that Duchess Eva will be moving to Winterfell.



Dancing as day turned to dusk.



Her Lyonesse, the Vicereine, Kamilah Hauptmann, dancing as the music played.

Sadly, I have very few pictures; for over an hour of this gathering, there were so many people (we topped sixty at one point) dancing and sharing memories of Loch Avie's place in Caledon's history, that I had to turn all my graphics settings down to avoid crashing!



The Lyonesse chose, midway through the event, to don attire more suiting to her beladi movements; she contemplated (and then discarded) a rich scarlet number, a royal blue set, and finally arrived on the seasonally appropriate red and green set seen here.



The dancers en masse spin and dip in the menuet.



An overhead shot, as the Aurora Borealis comes in over Loch Avie.



Another overhead shot; snow falls as the evening draws to a close.

This makes three members of the Caledon peerage, by the way, that are moving from Caledon. We are now losing more than OpenSpace sims, with Linden Labs's stunningly short-sighted decision; we are losing the hearts and minds that make Caledon great.

The loss of touchstone points, for many, as well as the maritime sims; Caledon-that-was is passing, irrevocably. Will the flurry of new titles and new lands borne from such privation improve, or detract, from Caledon's future?

I can't properly answer that--yet--though I will say the direction Caledon is going, in some respects, is becoming a shocking one. There is more of mainland than of majesty, in these latter days.

But the loss of the peerage...Duchess Eva moves to Winterfell Anodyne; Duchess Gabrielle has already moved to Edison; Lord Bardhaven is in the process of relocating to Winterfell, as well. This can only be a bad thing, in my opinion. Am I the only one who sees this? Unfortunately, whether I am or not, the world will go as it will, and I am not a Linden to make these decisions.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
--William Shakespeare, The Tempest

The year turns, the new year rises, the old one passes away. If we carry anything from the past year, at least we retain our memories of glories and successes, the pageantry and charity that made Caledon great. Here's to Caledon remaining strong throughout the new year to come.

But I begin to have my doubts...

standing on the edge of a drowning blue

Treachery, thy name is Linden.

So that's it, is it? Take away Caledon's sailing sims, in one fell swoop, but--don't worry! They've got us covered! Now there's sailing available off the mainland!

You remember the mainland, don't you? The happy fun place we all left in DROVES?!?

I'm likely wrong in this, I know, but it feels like base perfidy, it feels like them taking away something we already had with one hand, and giving us something glossier, more plasticene, less useful with the other--because really, truly, the Blake Sea? It won't be ironclads and tall ships, pirate sloops and brigantines...oh, no. It'll be drunken idiots on waterskis. Just wait.

Aminom Marvin makes an excellent point, too, on the redefinition of 'success' in SL that the creation of the Blake Sea shows. And this post by Feline Slade goes, just a little bit, into what Desmond Shang was hinting at, with all the oblique questions about Caledon attaching to the mainland, and if it were something we'd likely want to do. And the Your 2nd Place blog cuts right to the point: "For Jack to say this isn't favouritism is absolute balderdash."

In happier news, this may well be the cutest thing EVER. (Barring maybe Clockwerk dancing on someone's head.)

Moving on. I nearly feel as if I should apologize for getting the days wrong--honestly, I thought, I really thought, yesterday was the 21st--to everyone who attended Mr. Drinkwater's Yule fire celebration last night.

I'm not going to apologize, though, because I had so much fun--and honestly, where's the harm? So, tonight is the Longest Night. That's fine--last night was the Nearly Longest Night, then!

I might have to make it a tradition.

The night didn't start out alarmingly well:



I have this habit, when I'm rushed or running late? So I hied off to the Highlands, and--as I am wont to do in these moments--stepped off the telehub and made for the cluster of green dots I saw on the mini-map.

I forgot about my Sekrit Mutant Powah of getting stuck in builds. Halfway to my goal, a building rezzed in around me, I twisted, fell down a level--and there I was, stuck in stone, unable to move.

On the plus side, once I got to Book End, it was mass fun from start to finish. We even had an appearance from Santa:



Here's Santa--with his eight tiny reinfurs--flying in overhead.



And this is close to touch-down, and for a while, half the crowd, it seemed, had horns! It was a heartwarming, joyous, magnificent celebration.

And if I wished everyone safe journeys home, and to keep the flame alight, through the darkest night...well, consider it a test run.

For now. This night. This longest night, the point of deepest winter, the touchstone of darkness--in the sense of lightlessness, not evil. Here we stand, breathless and waiting, guarding the fire of life to see us through. We spend tonight sleepless, keeping each other awake, with laughter and song, fabulist contrivances, mead and merrymaking, good food and good friends.

Tonight, we tell stories of the past, and look towards the future. Tonight we light the candles, light the torches, light the hearthfires and the Yule logs. Tonight we burn--to ensure there is life tomorrow to keep burning.

Yulefires blaze, and candles glow, deep midwinter is upon us! Past this point and the sun's return, the light will lengthen, the days grow longer, until the height of summer comes and Beltane's sweet burning (of a different sort) is reached. But tonight, all is cold and dark, still and winter-frozen, and it is up to us to remember light and life, and carry those memories with us until the sun returns at dawn.

Yule, friends, and the longest night. Make merry! Make light! And remember!

the sweeping insensitivity of this still life

This is proving to be a bad week.

Seemingly moments (or so it feels) after being staggered by Miss Sumie's departure from the virtual (and the real), news now comes of the death of the Kaiserin, Kendra Bancroft.

I didn't know her. I saw her once at a formal ball. I don't believe I even spoke to her. So not to be overly callous, but why do I care?

I care because the news is circulating through (RL) places in which I listen, and speak, that Maddie Blaustein has passed on. Maddie Blaustein, as it turns out, was Kendra Bancroft's typist. And Maddie Blaustein was somewhat well-known.

Superstition knows little reason, but in my family, it has proven out--we do tend to expire in sets of threes. Now I find myself morbidly waiting for the third to fall.

Here's hoping I'm wrong.

In the meantime, all my sympathies to those that knew her. Your loss is felt, believe me, in this world and others.

a picture of you. a picture of you in uniform, standing with your head held high

[22:18] Litzi Xue: Um, I'm seeing a lot of boxes with dancing Hitlers at Love Soul....
[22:19] ame Meili: omg
[22:19] ame Meili: tp me lol

It's a lively group, the Kitties, so there was some other chatter on shapes...then people caught on:

[22:20] Mikayla Ares: i wanna see can u tp me litzi
[22:21] Mikayla Ares: once more plz
[22:22] ame Meili: omg something is wrong at love soul
[22:22] Litzi Xue: LOL
[22:23] Mikayla Ares: damn sl wont let me tp
[22:23] Mikayla Ares: there



[22:23] ame Meili: anyone else want to see
[22:23] ame Meili: it really is dancing hitlers
[22:23] Mikayla Ares: ok made it
[22:23] Autumn Thatch: they will probably crash the sim
[22:23] ame Meili: im taking a picture
[22:23] Harding Hammerer: what is it?
[22:23] Litzi Xue: And they're all saying Merry Christmas :0



[22:23] Mikayla Ares: are they by tp point?
[22:23] Autumn Thatch: they always crash help island
[22:23] WoulfCat Singer: griefers?
[22:24] Harding Hammerer: i want to see tp me
[22:24] Mikayla Ares: oh wow
[22:24] Lalinda Lovell: slurl, kittys can invade and beat hitler
[22:24] Mikayla Ares: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Nanba/217/62/27
[22:24] Mikayla Ares: its restarting in 2 minutes

And that was that.

Now, why were dancing Hitler cubes attacking a Japanese sim? Why, in fact, were they attacking a Japanese sim selling prim nails? Only the fates know, and I think they're laughing too hard to tell us.

Next, from Massively, comes mildly disturbing news from Second Life--in short, the Lindens are worried over the loss of premium accounts (including mine).

Even though Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon claimed that premium subscriptions were a small part of the overall business, at about 81,400 accounts and at least $6 per month (many pay more depending on land ownership etc) this is at least $488,400 a month or $5,860,800 a year in income (and probably double).

Why is this happening? I'd hazard a guess and say it's got to do with the OS sim crisis. Which was the absolute last straw for very many people.

Of the long list of suggestions for improvements for premium account-holders--most of which would be divisive in the extreme, or impossible to execute--I found a few I really wanted to see happen:

6. Bonuses and Gifts/Drawings

It's cheap, but people respond to it.

8. Better support

Or, for many people, functional support at all.

10. Upgraded Server Capacity

This is huge. And this, right here, if implemented prior to the hack job of customer disservice with the OpenSpace sim issue? Would have kept very many people premium account members.

12. Better profiles

Again, it's a picky meaningless point, but it would help people, they'd feel they were getting something--even if it was something entirely useless.

13. Bring Back First Land

14. Increase Group Limit

These two? ALSO HUGE. Let me say that again: First Land (for new premium members) and increased group limits (for all premium members) WOULD MAKE PEOPLE JOIN SECOND LIFE.

If there are any Lindens reading this? I'm not kidding, those would really help.

17. Premium Classified Ad Positions

A good selection for the merchants. Another good potential benefit for merchants:

19. Improved Inventory Management and Backup

So many people I know just get enraged when they lose things in their inventory, things they can't replace, because they built them.

24. Mega prims

I don't know why people don't give this up, but to be fair, this is what a lot of people want--permanent mega-prim creation abilities. For me, eh, whatever, I use mega-prims when I have to, they're not essential to me--but a lot of folks really want mega-build enabled.

All in all, brief but important--LL is now seeing that something they thought meant nothing, in terms of outgoing stipend payments, is now actually causing a great deal of worry and belt-tightening.

LL, it's your move. What do you do now?

And a brief overview of online worlds.

Yeah. That's somewhat accurate.

And does anyone know anything about Whirled? It mentions user content--but it looks a lot like it's been designed for the 13-to-15 set.

Finally, to wrap everything up, here's this little bit of holiday joy from the Lindens.

This was my first hint of deep danger:

The team produced a gorgeous design that uses Flash. In order to test the new design, we'll be pushing this new page live for a few hours next week, so we can evaluate the impact to traffic. Since Residents that log in get cookied (and directed to the "logged in" home page), the impact to Residents as we run our test should be limited.

In other words, expect crashes, net spasms, freezing, getting auto-logged out, and unbelievable levels of lag like never before.

They go on:

The core of the design is a nine-pod layout and a carousel of pods that can be "flicked" from left to right to reveal additional pods. This allows a potential Resident to see a wide range of experiences available to them.

In other words, graphics-intensive, Flash-dependent website that will ignore entirely those Residents who don't run Flash well, who have older computers, who prefer non-graphical environments (don't laugh, but I know at least one legally blind lady who loves SL for talking to people).

But this paragraph is the one that stunned:

Some of the pods include "verbs"--the things you can do in Second Life--like shop, build, play, flirt, learn. Verb pods expand to play a short animated Flash clip that shows the Second Life experience in motion.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, WAIT, now. Okay, first of all, why the hell is "verbs" in quotes? Verbs can stand on their own, damn it. They don't need inappropriate quotation marks to emphasize that they're VERBS.

Secondly, they need waaaay more words. Shopping, building, flirting, learning--those are all good things. But we need to add in everything else, now, that you can do in Second Life.

Like sailing. Oh, wait, they took that away.

Or getting married. Oh, but no, they're likely going to jump on the "traditional marriage" bandwagon next, and insist that SL marriages must last at least six months to preserve our grand heritage.

How about sex? Oh, but they're likely trying to play that down. Okay, forget sex, let's talk screwing people over--because content theft, copybotting, and outright nothing-for-something schemes are HUGE on SL, still.

Griefing. Now that would make a good "verb". We could even sub-set that one into separate categories--like caging, or trapping, or orbiting. And tie that all in under the heading of banning. Because a lot of people do that here.

Or maybe just outright say what it is, and have one of the cute little Flash-enabled takes-nine-years-to-load-the-goddamn-home-page pods listed as stealing.

In fact, we could add in a whole bunch here--shooting, killing, fighting. Throwing (your computer out the window). Banging (your head against the keyboard in frustration). And then, of course, crashing, logging, relogging, rebaking...and of course upgrading (your video card, because accessing this highly Flash-enabled piece of moving fluff will have burned out your last three).

Oh, yes, indeed, my great gods, this was absolutely necessary, I see it now. They needed to do this. It was vitally necessary. They had absolutely nothing that needed more attention.

LIKE THE ASSET SERVER.

*storms off in a huff*

I go follow to the river, play your memory like a piper

The Mississippi's mighty, but it starts in Minnesota
At a place where you can walk across with five steps down
And I guess that's how you started like a pinprick to my heart
But at this point you rush right through me and I start to drown...

Mourning is always this. Always. It comes and goes, tidal, pulling towards, drawing back. Happy in brief moments, melancholy in the moments following. Denial and hurt, acceptance and raging at fate, and pain, always pain. And overlaying everything, the sick knowledge that we will never see the mourned one again, we will never hear them laugh, never watch them learn new things, never give advice again.

Never dance with them again. Never say good-night of an evening. Never say hello, and smile, because we say hello to them.

Tidal. Pain that comes and goes, agony of loss separated into digestable segments. Because elsewise, how could we continue to go on, if we were trapped in grieving, always, when we did?

We have to have moments of levity. We have to have moments where we smile. Even if sometimes, that leads to that dark inner voice asking how we dare smile, when we have lost; how we dare laugh when the one we miss will never laugh again.

I'm familiar in these waters, unfortunately; the whole of my life has been imbued with the certain knowledge that people leave, and they do not come back. Nearly before I could speak, I knew loss; and it never truly left. I have said before that all the ocean is my graveyard, because so many of my family are ash upon the waves.

It leads me, at the least, to a certain melancholia of apprehension.

I had been sitting in Bare Rose's VIP room when I heard. I'd gone in and sat down, as many other Bare Rose group members had, on the off-chance of winning something fun from the raffle ball. I left to make dinner, and to watch a movie, and when I came back, Miss Snook had IMed me. Oh, I meant to tell you, I remember the IM saying. Oh, I meant to tell you about Sumie.

I hadn't seen her for nearly a week, and my first thought caused my heart to fall. She's back in hospital. She's back in a coma. She's been in another accident. Oh gods, what now?

I went through notices that had accumulated while I'd been logged in, but non-responsive. And I hit the Duchess relating Sumie's death.

The rest of me fell in that instant--in world, I fell offline, and the rest of me couldn't stop crying. For nearly three hours--logging back in to the grid, changing into something more sedate, making my way to the Fallen Anvil--I couldn't stop the tears that poured down my face.

And we get the most ridiculous thoughts in moments like these. Oh, if only I'd known. Oh, if only I'd been there. Oh, I should have said more. I should have done more. I should have helped more.

I didn't say much at the memorial, the pain was too great. It kept sweeping over me and taking my words away. I know others were in a similar state. We related stories of how we met her, and the same words kept coming up to describe her, over and over.

The bright presence of her. The earnest desire to please. The joy she had in life. Her yearning to soar high, her vibrant alive-ness, that marked everyone who knew her.

When she gave me the Darkhouse that stands in Morgaine, she said it was her way of thanking me for inspiring her. I still, even now, have this urge to shake my head at that.

"Inspiring you?" I remember asking her. "All I've done is given you some advice. You created everything else."

"You helped me," she told me in return. "You helped, and I want to thank you for that."

If the memory of your life, once lived, can make people laugh, and cry, smile and weep, and yes, be inspired--then, regardless of when or where, how much your life was cut short, you have done a great thing by living it.

Sumie did that, at the very least. And she did so much more.

I'd like to mention something that happened yesterday evening, something that Mr. Drinkwater, master of the grace note, thought appropriate to read as tribute at her memorial:

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

I'll be in and out of this mood for a while yet, I think. It's going to be a few more days before I get the strength to go down to the ground in Morgaine, and look up at the Darkhouse. But that, I have, from her. Whatever else strange and surreal happens to the property--that, at least, is tribute to her spirit, quirks and virtues, flaws and loyal friendship, and to the works she built with her hands and heart.

All of us in Caledon, at the very least, have that from her--nearly every lighthouse Caledon has was built by her capable hands. It's nice to know that most of the light in the darkness she helped bring home.

Twenty-six. It was far too young to die.

(Initial stanza comes from the Indigo Girls' song Ghost; it deals with nostalgic recollection of a poisoned love. Sumie and I, we weren't that, we were friends...but she was very dear to me.)

and in sunshine the waters are sleeping

"Is this some kind of sick joke?"

I was pulled out of my stunned reverie at that, several of us were, and we watched in a dull sort of horror as someone who hadn't seen the notices found out, all at once, that Sumie Kawashima had passed.

She wanted to be told we were kidding. She wanted to be told that it was all a jest, even at her expense, even a group of people she didn't know, had never met.

We quietly told her, it was no jest, it was the truth of the situation, and she ported off in a panic. One would assume to contact Sumie, who was her Mentor on the grid.

One can only imagine how heartbreaking wanting, needing to be told we were in error, and finding out we were not, would be.

Will be.

I only know that I will miss her, and the next several days are going to hurt a great deal. She was the bright, energetic spark in my life, even though we generally flew in elliptical orbits. She was so devoted to Caledon, so in love with the land, that the first thing she did after recovering from a three-week coma was to ask for her laptop, so she could get in world and tell everyone she was okay.

At first her doctors would only let her on for brief periods of time; her injuries were severe beyond the coma. But she perservered, in spite of everything, and that was one of her strongest personality traits.

Enduring. Persisting. Fighting. Surviving. And keeping hope alive in spite of it all.

The notice that Duchess Gabrielle sent out earlier this evening:

Sumie Kawashima passed away in RL Friday evening, Dec 12 of complications from a bone infection. Sumie's rezday was Aug 13, 2007, & she became a Caledon resident soon thereafter. A designer, builder, and test pilot of various aircraft, she founded Kawashima Aero. Sumie was a Group Captain in the Royal Caledon Air Force, head of the Risen Demons, and demon-protectress of the Tamrannoch Sanitorium. Her friends will sorely miss her. Memorial service will be announced at a later date. Boing boing, Sumie.

I'm still too close to say more than that, and more than what I said at the informal gathering tonight at the Fallen Anvil: God, I'm going to miss her.

Miss Aether Inglewood gives her perspective, and a strong, healing one it is.

Magdalena Kamenev sums it up for those who didn't know her, and nicely so, indeed.

Requiescat in pace, Sumie. You will be missed.

Fly high, my friend.

stay and see the smoke, and who's still standing when it clears

Quiet nights. After the mad run of events, and planning, changing into outfit after outfit. Professional and perky and smiling on cue. Afterwards. After all my loves have gone and I can hear footsteps echoing down the long imagined halls of Caledon virtual, when most of its most active residents are long asleep.

I surprise myself again by reminding myself of old habits. I once had a perpetual habit, constant habit--I've always saved amusing or meaningful quotes, but the phrases I loved that someone had said, strong friends or loves, I'd save them, but I'd save them in that reserved space on the profile. I'm sure there are quotes and sayings still out there, on friends I've long forgotten, friends who left the grid and never came back, and I stopped caring to find their names.

I strolled through the ones I do remember, have remembered, hold dear, and remembered why I held them dear in the first place. Treasured words, declarations, movements of inspired tiredness, amusing banter, butterflies and poetry--it's all there.

I wonder how long it's going to be until I forget again.

In the meantime, I'm still working to keep the inventory to a dull roar--I haven't (yet) ended an evening over 57,000 items, but I've pressed to the limit of 56,900. Still, it's my line in the sand, I'm drawing it. We'll see how it goes.

Moment of irony I'm reflecting upon, though--I wanted to change my profile picture. I wanted something seasonal. So I went to a sandbox and ended up rezzing out, attaching or creating over one hundred and fifty separate prims of holiday treats--including the full backdrop, a striped full floor, the holiday scarf, a hanging light, face light, a sparkling lit tree, a box full of prim lights and candy canes, the Mystitool platform I used to get me up to where I wanted to create this...

...yes, all that for a picture. Which I'll likely change in three days. Maybe less.

Irony.

In other news, I can't decide if Secondhand Lands is something I want to join, or something I want to run from--at speed. (Watching the trailer does not help with the wanting to run part, by the way.)

I go to bed tonight remembering first nights. The urgency of love, and the addictive drowning yearning in waiting. And not waiting. How a smile from one of my loves still lights my heart. Moment to moment, moments of attention, moments of shivering bliss. My dreams will be sweet.

In the meantime, I'm running out of time to plot a holiday gifting of my own. I may well end up running something at the store from December 25th through to June 5th--Twelfth Night--and end things then, take the tree and gifts away.

I'm thinking holly bats, house slippers, maybe a dress or two...try my hand at earrings...see how it goes. It will get me building again, at the very least!

and after all the blood that you still owe, another dollar's just another blow

Forcing the technology to work, bridging gaps, bridging worlds, functioning at three-quarters speed regardless, it seemed like...

It was a challenging night.

I got things done, got some of the backlog of old hunts, old group gifts, processed and sorted, awaiting the draining work of trying on everything, seeing if it fits, seeing if it works...

The night was harder than it should have been.

And then, just when goodbyes were being said, my attention wandered. A momentary mention--lies and deceit--and I wondered at it, wondered why the former hope had turned on the edge of the knife. Not even knowing what the former hope had been...

...and I looked down the list of updates, lightly, where I'd read the words of betrayal, and I saw her name.

And even the name, the name alone, still makes me heartsick.

So much of my life on the grid wrapped around her, the dark muse dancer, insanity's unwelcome mistress. More than any demon, more than any distant love, she affected me. We never were involved, no matter what the rumors said, but I was loyal to her, I was servant and champion, and I tried to do right by her.

Did the glittering throng dizzy me? Of course. Did the beauty of the situation call to me? Of course. Visual artist to visual artist, how could it not?

But then. Then. She threw me away. As casually, as thoughtlessly, as she'd thrown away so many. Just a simple gesture, expedient and pure, and I was gone as if I'd never been.

But I still am.

I still stand.

And I have not forgotten.

I wander farther now, I wander in and out of other worlds, I have found other causes to convince me. And I am resolute in my resolve never to be in her thrall again. It will not happen.

But nights like this, dark nights, when a word leads me here, a phrase there, and I follow, and I follow...

I remember.

In my own way, I remember all of them, for all the good it does me.

I don't listen to the Deftones anymore. I don't listen to Thrice. I rarely go to the elven lands, or to any lands of magic. By and large, these days, I stay indoors. What moments I spend outside, I'm spending in flurries of snow, and I cannot see the night sky.

I've boxed up all her art, to deal with later. I've thrown away or locked away every letter she wrote to me.

It's all I can do, for now, my version of locking the gates against re-entry. Those who have hurt me, before, I see no reason to arm and welcome them in again. Time and more than time to refuse the knocking along the wall.

And I will never be her toy again. In this life or any other.

It is morbidly interesting to me--though I've kept them, at this point, anything given to me, any picture taken, any word sent, is carefully boxed away, labeled, and boxed again. I don't need to see those things, I need more to move on. And by and large, I have.

I still listen to VNV Nation.

It's the one thing I've kept. Odd little quirk of personality it may be, but...they still speak to me.

I don't think it means anything, at this point. I don't think it can. But it's there.

hide the scars and fade away that shake-up

Friend of mine sent me a link to this entry from his blog. And while I tend to agree with his overall conclusion, I did have to take exception to the main point:

I don't think you're wrong, in the layout of what's happening, what will be happening, with SL, save for one thing. And it's the same point I hit the wall with.

The Lindens have no responsibility, and even less moral and ethical compunction, to hand over a 'resident Bill of Rights'. Linden Labs is a business. Second Life is a game. Period. End of sentence. That's the bottom line.

There is no revolution, there is no outcry that can be made, nothing works, nothing will work--because, at the end of the day, what we make, what we do, in their world--well, it's still their world.

As much as I want things to change, and the Lindens to wake up and realizing they're crafting their own demise--I am not, and no one who is still protesting is, the voice of rebellion. There can be no rebellion, save for leaving the game.

When enough of us leave--led potentially by Anshe Chung, and definitely by Sarah Nerd--and the Labs finally realize the damage they've wrought--will they learn? Will they finally realize what they've done?

And ultimately, I think the answer to that is--no. No. The Lindens are not capable, for whatever reason, of reacting to their environment in any meaningful, understanding way. And that may be the true tragedy in this: that we think they've created something beautiful, something worthy of protection, and they think they've created a marketable game.

It's still true.

Tiny THRILLER! Apparently, you can still get the "Thriller" dance--tiny style!--at Miss Latrell's shop, Lilliput, in Raglan Shire.

See also the Fuzznutz lipsyncing--well, sort of--to the Ting Ting's "That's Not My Name".

Lastly, in the dizzying whirl that is the end of December on the grid, rife with giveaways, advent gifts, and scavenger hunts, we have a woman who apparently thinks CopyBot is better than shopping.

darla Bade has been seen blatantly stealing from those around her with the CopyBot script--or one very like in behavior--and seems to think there's nothing wrong in this, because she's not selling the items she makes.

Let me state this again, because it sounds vaguely important: darla Bade is stealing textures for clothing and fur--and likely more that we don't know about--and thinks it's fine because she doesn't have a store.

Maybe it's me, but I just cannot believe that, in a grid with freebies in every shop corner, practically, a grid where one can now get dressed better from the first step off Orientation Island than any of us were able to dress for pay two years ago--and from the skin and shape out I mean, not just clothing--why would anyone steal 'just because'? Does that make any sense?

Was she dropped on her head as a prim child?

there's always a reason to dance

News from Google: they're killing Lively. Me, personally, I'm thrilled at this. Lively was terrible. But for anyone who actually managed to like, and, more to the point, enjoy being in Lively...my sympathies.

Now, who plans to be the next up-and-comer?

Speaking of which, it's big and it's bad--Sarah Nerd is pulling out of SL.

How'ver, what I want to talk about--again--is steampunk music. (Oh, see, you thought I forgot? Noooo. I've just been pondering in the background.)

Maybe I've been going at this entirely the wrong way. I've been concentrating on the music, when maybe--all along--I should have been concentrating on the culture.

Because, when it comes down to it, that is the heart of any music--the culture that surrounds it, infiltrates it, the culture that the music explains and encompasses. So let's start there.

The assumption, of course, remains: society retained a fondness for steam power (and concurrent tinkering) for far, far longer than our society did. So, posit: what else would such a move change in that society?

I think (disregarding any fabulist tales I could spin out) independence would be the biggest change. And not necessarily in terms of dragging leaders down, but in the day-to-day lives of even the poorest sorts--if virtually anyone in the culture, after all, could potentially create using steam, elbow grease, and machined parts, there would be a great upsurge of innovation, of all sorts. Steam-powered vehicles. Steam-powered watercraft. Steam-powered automatons to work in the factories to create more machined parts to sell.

Women, freed from the workplace, would fight for their rights much earlier. They might, in fact, be granted them earlier, but I doubt there would be the jagged split between women-who-work and women-who-marry there is now.

I think a secondary value, constantly reinforced, would be individuality. I truly think mass production of equipment would not have happened, or would have happened much later--the age of the craftsman, painstakingly carving that gem, molding that retort, building house by house instead of houses by the tens, apartments by the dozens, skyscrapers by the hundreds--would have lasted much, much longer.

We'd have far more of this:



and far more of this:



over structures like this:



and structures like this:



Individuality would be respected, independence would be cherished, inventors and innovators would be household names--what else would change? What would we still have discovered, what would we have passed by?

Marie Curie in such an age would be celebrated, and mourned. That might not change. But Albert Einstein--would he be revered, or reviled? Would Hiroshima have happened? Nagasaki? Prior to that, would Korea have happened? What countries would fall prey to cookie-cutter groupthink, over independence that created "calming pies" as often as they created world-walking robots?

To that end, how many cities would be destroyed by one man's experiment gone rogue, over outright war? Would tinkerers and technicians be eventually hated and feared?

This is going to take some thought...

What inspired Star Wars? With a special appearance by Howard the Duck. Oh, dear.

And you just can't trust garden gnomes. Tch.

but where's your heart?

I watch her judge him. I say nothing. I watch her slip through his fingers. I say nothing. I watch him torn between old loves and new loves, and I say nothing.

I watch her plays grow more and more obvious, her invitations to me to come play, come dance, and I cannot speak what I'm thinking. I watch her invite me to play the meek little submissive at her feet, and I say nothing.

My words are locked inside their cage of bone, and I do not know what will free them. I wait because I do not know how to act. I watch because I do not know how to speak, what to speak.

The radio at my elbow sputters into static life. Fire in the engine yard. Again.

The only surprise is that I'm not more surprised.

I will say this: if I have accepted, even only within the limits of the grid, someone's hand on my jesses...as far-ranging and wild a creature as I am...If I have done that, for anyone, regardless of what the limitations of those bindings might be...

...what makes anyone think I would do that twice? More to the point, what makes anyone seriously consider I would do so willingly, never knowing from day to day whether I'd be leading or led?

My hand pauses on the wall, started mid-way between contemplation and exhaustion. I sigh. I'm doing it again--guarding myself, walling myself apart from any who might hurt me, drawing back, losing touch. Losing contact.

It's not enough to simply stop, though, reverse such action, pledge again to be better, more open, more willing. I lean against the wall and watch the flames, merry with distance.

All right. I have no answers, only more questions. I'm waiting, universe. Tell me what to do next.

(On repeat while I wrote this was this song. When the time for retrospection comes, we'll see if it was a good choice or not.)