They Paved Paradise And They Put Up A Parking Lot

This used to be the site of Merlantis. So what happened? I have no idea. All I know is that I checked the map, and all of Eyeles sim, except for the mall in the center, was grey. And so was the sim itself; filled in with what appears to be about one million cubic meters of concrete.

A Bit of a Poser

It was suggested by Morris Aabye that I need some poses/animations for mers in shallow water. I decided that some of them would also work on dry land (should anyone ever find themselves out of the water). So here's the first. It's a 15-second animation, with what I think is a nice tail flip.

Who says they're not making any more land?

They finally connected Caledon with Winterfell! I just had to go see for myself, so I threw on a few rags and went to Cape Wrath.

There is still some development to be done here.

The view of Winterfell from the north shore of Cape Wrath.

It's winter in Caledon, as I found out to my discomfort. I really need to buy a nice winter coat!

The Tale Of The Tails

I finally got done putting together vendors for my line of simple mermaid tails, and a mer AO.

The tails come in a variety of colors, but any of them can be tinted however the owner wants. Personally, I like the basic silver one the best: the problem with adding a shading color is that the color changes with lighting.

The AO is based on the ZHAO II, with three buttons added for Go to Surface, Hold Depth (which doesn't work while moving), and Dive to Bottom. The Surface button in particular is handy, saving me having to creep up on the surface without erupting out of the water.

I've been running across the "artifact" problem in Windlight, even at the store. It seems to get worse the longer you're signed on. I've reported it to LL, who assigned it the ID [rt.lindenlab.com #1028625]. Nobody else seems to be reporting this bug, so I'm wondering if it has something to do with my particular graphics card (ATI Radeon 9550 AGP). It's bad enough that I don't stay in Windlight for long; unfortunately, because I love the new water.

A Whole New World

So LL has released Winlight in a beta viewer after several months of Banging On Things. All I can say is: Wow. Just... Wow. Go download it now; especially if you're a mer. The water is amazing!


I ran into one bug that I've already reported: some graphics artifacts show up at Mertopia (Blake sim). I suspect it may have something to do with all of the sculpties they have there, but I don't have the problem at the new Mermaid's Dream location*, which has a couple of sculptie rocks, and which is backed by the neighbor's huge wall made up of sculpties. So maybe it's something else particular to Mertopia. Hopefully they'll figure it out without too much trouble.


* Notice how I managed to slip in a plug for the store...

Moving Up

I talked Minto into biting the tier bullet and buying some more land in Arianti; I supplied the Lindens for a 1024 plot, so he wasn't too hard to persuade. So I've moved Mermaid's Dream there, and am enjoying the luxury of the enlarged space and prims. I think I can make the shop look much more attractive and professional now.


Now I need to get ambitious and finish up the new products that I've been toying with for so long. I've come to prefer the tail(s) I designed, and pretty much wear one exclusively when I decide to put on fins.


Then there's the AO; based on the ZHAO II with a few value-added features. I would want the AO available to go along with the tails; for convenience, seeing how the tail outfits will be aimed mainly at new mers. And there is still a big market for mer dances and other animations, so that's another thing on my to-do list.

Mertopia

There is now an entire sim dedicated to merfolk and other aquatic types! Mertopia was created in Blake by sim owner EmeraldEver Cline with help from Secrets of Atlantis Queen Luna Misfit, and is officially open as of Nov. 3 after two years of planning and hard work.


The top portion of Queen Luna's Palace is on the left in the picture above.

This will be a roleplaying sim for Secrets of Atlantis. It should be fun!

Avaria Kro Panorama

No reason for this other than it's a fantastic build...


Be sure to click on the image for the full-size version.

Let's Face It

This seems to be the thing to do in SL blogs these days. Oh, well -- I don't mind being compared to Heather Locklear. Or even J. K. Rowling, for that matter.

Where No Av Has Gone Before

I was excited to discover that six new sims have been added adjacent to Arianti where Mermaid's Dream is located. These new water sims make a connection between the continents of Nautilus and Mãebaleia (and don't think it wasn't tricky to track down the continent names, since they don't seem to be listed together in one place, but are scattered throughout the Second Life Wiki*).


I had been hoping that something would eventually happen. These new sims now link together a sizable body of water -- perhaps more than 30 sims, depending on how obstructed some of the passages are -- that hopefully will remain clear for boating. So you may see Mermaid's Dream -- my Tako, that is, not the shop, or Blue Wizard, Minto's boat, moored at the dock from time to time.

--------------------------
* So I'll list them here for posterity. The current Second Life continents are:

• Sansara - the original and largest of the mainland continents.
• Heterocera the "atoll continent" to the north of Sansara
• Jeogeot - the "Korean" continent south of Sansara
• Islandia - two "island continents" adjacent to Sansara on the east; developed by Anshe Chung.
  
• Mãebaleia - the southernmost of the three "eastern continents"
• Nautilus - the middle of the three "eastern continents"
• Corsica - the northernmost of the three "eastern continents"
  

Oh Will This Mad Whirlwind Existance Ever End

OK, I admit it: I don't really have an excuse for not updating this blog for over a month. I'm sure every blogger (except maybe Natalia, Torley, Zoe...) goes through periods where the priorities lie elsewhere.


One good thing; My shop Mermaid's Dream has been raking in the loot earning a bit of cash. Who would have known that mer animations were in such demand? I've been playing around with other products; a line of simple mer tails, an Atlantean "scooter", and a wheelchair for those times when you absolutely have to go out onto dry land and don't want to drag your tail around (thanks to Morris Aabye, who was working on the idea and graciously let me steal it). I also redid the cave/grotto to be a little more interesting than the hemisphere I had before.

I now have a vendor up in Rua, thanks to the owner jemma Flora.

The problem with the wheelchair so far is that I keep falling over in it and end up flopping around on the floor. :-P

Supercalimaristicexpealedocious

Got an IM to come see Cydonia Juran's giant squid av. I hear it's his first build; pretty impressive!


We all wanted a ride on his back, but couldn't figure out how to attach sit poseballs. AFAIR, it doesn't work on an attachment -- but I've seen riders on avs before, so I know it's possible.

Something Fishy is Going On Here

I wanted some wildlife in my pond to make things a little less static, so I did a lot of searching for fish. I'm not too impressed with the 2D ones that just orbit in a circle; I wanted fish that were more realistic.

I finally stumbled across Splash Aquatics. They have some what are called "coarse" fish -- carp, perch, and a couple of others. The sort of common fish that you might find in any lake or stream (at least, in the U.S. -- I don't know how common they are in other places). But these are animated, free-roaming, one-prim sculpties that look and move quite realistically. And best of all, they're only L$100 each! They also come with a feeder. Wear an attachment, or rez a feeder box, and you can drop food for the fish(es), who will swim over and eat it.

It's pretty easy to position the fish and set the area it roams in.


Here's a picture of a carp I stationed at Mermaid's Dream as a greeter and night watchman. Yes, I know carp are fresh-water fish and lindon water is supposedly salt (or so one would think) -- but don't tell the carp that.

Broadly Offensive Geography

So the latest controversy in SL is what has become to be known as "Nipplegate": an artistic nude statue was put up at the Burning Life event on a PG sim, whereupon the organizers were asked by Iridium Lindon to move the statue to a Mature sim or remove the offending "detail" on the breasts. This was seen by many as unreasonable, seeing as how nudity in art is common and usually accepted in RL, even with under-18 humans present (which they shouldn't be in the SL grid). Vint Falken has had words to say about this.

My contribution to all of this is to point out that even some RL place names would violate this type of censorship.

Simpler body parts also litter the landscape. The Indians named New Hampshire's Uncanoonuc Mountains for a woman's breasts. French trappers did the same for the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. Later settlers in Utah named Molly's Nipple and Fern's Nipple. Perhaps they were Scots immigrants recalling the Paps of Jura. There are further body parts out there too, of course.

So a warning to sim builders: don't reproduce any of the above topological features in SL or face the wrath of the Lindons!

Sometimes You Feel Like You're On A Bus To Nowhere

Caledon Regency

Took a walk around the new Regency sim in Caledon. It looks like a good addition to the country.

All That Jazz

Master V and I were finally inworld at the same time, so we TP'd over to Juke Joint Blues in Plush Lambda. It's the first time I'd been there, and I liked the jazz and easygoing atmosphere.

By the way, what is it with all those "Plush" sims? They seem to form an unofficial "continent" in the Far North. And furthermore, what about those sims to the northwest of that, named after various drugs? Did someone say "broadly offensive"? I guess not.

Bad Grid Day

The past couple of days have been a little rocky on the Grid. Login problems, and once you get on, sims offline and TP delays and hangups. I did manage to get in a little sailing today in the Nantucket complex (Santa Barbara was offline, so the route to Hollywood was cut off).

For lack of anything better to do, I sat on a seagull.

Access Denied

Second Life is inaccessable this morning. *sigh* I guess I'll have to hang out in RL for a while while the Lindons bang on things.

Mermaid Landscaping

The ground area under my friend Minto's home wasn't being used, so I convinced him that a part-time mermaid needs a pond of her own. He had previously made me a small pool up at what he humourously calls his "castle", but it was pretty small. So he very kindly relandscaped his land to put in a sizable pond for me to swim in, and moved my "shack" down to poolside. Now if I can find some friendly fish to eat frolic with...

The Skyship Docks at Grendel's Children

Checking out Mr. Incredible's Deltoids

So why don't you dump Elastigirl and come rescue this cute kitten?

The Crowded Skys of Caledon

Wrong? Why, Nothing's Wrong...

The latest update seems to have spawned some mysterious avatar twitches around SL. When I logged on this morning, I noticed that my av seemed to be a bit confused:


Other people I talked to mentioned mysterious eye twitches as well. And a newly-created bug in the "open mouth" emote animation makes one look like a fish. It's effecting so many products and animations that a JIRA report has been started on it: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-318

Green Eyes!

Considering a new eye color.

In Support of SLiberty

The blog, The News from Bardhaven, has an entry questioning the statement by Lindon Labs that many activities, including those containing "broadly offensive content" will be banned from Second Life. I also question this development, and posted the following reply to the post:

I am not a citizen of Caledon, but I want to add my voice to yours in questioning this latest statement from Lindon Labs.

SL is not RL. The participants here do not face the same dangers as in the Other World. One can always refuse to participate, teleport to some other location, or log out of any Second Life situation. There are existing channels for dealing with harassment and violations of the existing TOS. To impose draconian limits on activities by consenting adults in Second Life is therefore entirely unnecessary.

The attitude that this statement by Lindon Labs appears to represent is an unfortunate reflection of the growing intolerance and discrimination lately occurring in Real Life, particularly in the USA. Until now, Second Life has been a haven from this; a place where we have a chance to shape our own realities and experiences -- whatever they may be. It would be a tragedy to lose that which has made Second Life so precious to us.

For me, at least, there is no attraction in a bland, G-rated playground with little scope for creativity, closely fenced by regulation, where infractions are gleefully reported by self-imposed morality monitors.

We must stand up for the world that we have made!

Just Squeaking By

I spent some time today teaching the rats in Master V's dungeon how to squeak.

Technical notes: What that really means is that I found some .WAV sound files of rat squeaks on the Net, used a sound-editing program called Goldwave (highly recommended) to convert them to the format that SL will accept (44.1 kHz sampling, 16-bit mono), and then loaded them into SL.

I added a simple little squeak script and the sound files to the rat object. The script sits in an endless loop and does random-length llSleep calls and then plays one of the squeak sounds (also picked at random).

Just another element added to the dungeon ambience. Maybe dripping water next...

Grendel's Children

It's been a while since I visited Grendel's Children, so I went there to browse, and discovered that they have been expanding. There are now 3 sims where there used to be one, and the store is much larger now (I'm sure that everyone but me knew this already).

Rats!

The dungeon is now infested with rats. They're scampering quite nicely.

Homesteading, BDSM Style

Master V has been staying in a free apartment, because the owner was trying to sell the land, and let people stay in her apartments for nothing pending the sale. But she finally decided to start charging rent, so Master decided it was time to buy his own land. He had me look for a likely place.


I found a 1024 m2 lot for less than L$10K in the northern part of the new NorthEast Continent. It looked like a quiet area, although there is always the danger that someone will eventually put up a casino next door. And it was near the top of a hillside, so there is a good view. Master looked it over and liked it, so he bought it and told me to start construction. Well, I'm the one who has building and scripting experience. I put in a grassy terrace temporarily and dropped a pink flamingo on it for laughs while I planned the real landscaping.

I made a simple rectangular 20 x 10 m house out of 4 basic prims, and found some Tudor and Gothic textures to give it the proper look for a BDSM master's domicile.

Of course the dungeon was the most important element. I put in an annex to the house, and a ramp leading down. Master V gave me land modification rights, and I dropped the ground as far as it would go to see what I had to work with. Fortunately, there was plenty of available depth.

Per Master V's requirements, I put in three isolation cells at the bottom of the ramp, and a door leading to a sizable dungeon. I sank a pit in the deepest corner for recalcitrant slaves, and put up the proper gloomy textures on the walls and floor. I laid terraces overhead for respectable public landscaping which served as the dungeon ceilings. I killed the flamingo as he was taking up 14 prims.

The past couple of days, I've been rolling my own lockable cell doors (the same scripts also work for the grating over the Pit). The doors have an option to allow someone on the outside to spy on the prisoner in the cell, while remaining unchanged on the inside (isn't SL texturing fun?). I still need to figure out how to detect if a prisoner TP's out, so she can be reported to the Master.

Oh, and I've started working on rats. Really.

The Wide World of SL Sports

Tiny sumo wrestling!

Court of Atlantis

Attended a meeting of the Secrets of Atlantis group yesterday afternoon, Queen Luna Misfit presiding. It was definitely an experience being among so many merfolk at the same time!



One thing that was discussed was the role of "evil" merpersons as part of the Clan roleplay. Nearly everyone immediately volunteered to go to the dark side; which says something about merfolk nature, I suppose. But if Caledon can have a war, why can't we merfolk cause a bit of mischief of our own?

Of course it's all in good fun, and Queen Luna warned everyone about taking things too seriously.

Princess Ikioi Tiramisu (left) and Queen Luna Misfit

There is a rumor that a sea area may be created in the elven lands, and if so, we might be able to occupy it from time to time. I certainly hope so -- it would harmonize with my own combined mer/elven heritage.

The meeting finally closed and an impromptu game of beach ball soccer broke out. I was experiencing so much lag, though, that I couldn't manage to fin-kick the ball when it flew by me.

Little People, Big Sim

On a visit to Caledon Tanglewood yesterday, I happened to encounter Oolon Sputnik, who is pursuing a project to photograph the X-Men as tinys. Certainly a fascinating idea. He was in his Cyclops costume, and fired an energy bolt from his visor for me.

The Slave and the Zombie

So what do I do now?

Today, Master V announced to me that he now had a new servant; one to occupy camping chairs for him, leaving him free to do whatever he wanted on the Grid while said servant brought in Lindons that Master would then harvest from him. I wondered about this -- even a slave such as myself has some rights, but this new "servant" was being treated as little more than a zombie, a mere placeholder for Master's benefit.

"I'll show him to you," Master told me, commanding me to dress.

We ported to a casino, where Master searched around for a few minutes, unable to locate his minion. Finally, he resorted to calling him up. S (or so I will call him) appeared soon afterward and stood before us, unmoving.

His clothes were plain, but his face was textureless white; cabalistic writing scrawled across it. "I didn't give him a face," Master explained. "He is nothing; a thing." I was disturbed and a little frightened by the soulless visage that turned in my direction.

Then Master V had to leave, and commanded both of us to be about our respective businesses. But as I ported away, I received a single IM message -- from S:

Please help me escape

There is someone there, behind the blank mask, someone who suffers. But what can I, a slave, do? Master punishes indiscretions readily; I shudder to think what he would do to me were I to aid another of his "possessions" in escaping him even if I knew how. Could S even survive as an independent being, or is he totally at the whim of his maker? Worse, what if this entire episode is an invention of Master, a trap to test my obedience?

I must think.

The Case of the Disappearing Sim

I logged on today and got relocated to "a nearby location". So I TP'd to a neighboring sim and discovered that Sipiwesk was AWOL. The world Map didn't show anything out of the ordinary, like it usually does when a sim is offline.

A big hole where Sipiwesk ought to be

Sipiwesk appeared a little later on, so everything's OK -- for the time being.

Collar and Cuffs

I guess I should mention that for some time now, I have had a Master.

We met when I was making my usual rounds of the BDSM sites in SL, and I decided to submit myself to him, for as long as the relationship might last. Master V (as I'll call him here) is 8 time zones away from me, so sometimes it's a bit hard to get together. But I now wear his collar and look forward to the times when I can be his slave. He helped me choose a better skin -- to enjoy me better, he said.

Meeow.

Feeling in a rather catty mood, I acted on impulse and bought a set of Twitchy Kitty Ears and a Twitchy Tail from the strangely-named }(O.o){ Fa's Shop (of doom) in Mew. (I had to substitute braces for the '>' and '<' in the name because they played havoc with the HTML formatting of this post). I think the animations add a lot to the effect. Now when I go out catting around, I can do it in style!

Mermaid's Dream

I attended a sailboat race at the Starbord's Yacht Club in Hollywood, and after watching the races, I was hooked. I just had to get a Flying Tako, which is said to be one of the best sailboats in SL. At L$250, it was a bargan. They were for sale (I resisted the urge to spell that "sail" there you'll be glad to hear) at the dock, so I splurged and bought one.

With some advice from a bystander, I was soon in control. I used to have a 14' Sunfish-class sailboat in RL years ago, and though my experience wasn't all that vast, it helped understand how the boat was reacting. The Flying Tako really does sail much like a small RL sailboat about the same size. And if you go into Mouselook, you get the sounds of the water lapping against the hull. It comes with two HUD attachments that simplify control of the boat and picturing the direction of the wind and the set of the sail, although you can use Chat commands for control as well.

You can set the color of the hull by command as well. I decided to go one better and add a wood-plank texture on the deck and a design on the sail.

Since I'm a part-time mermaid, I decided to name the boat Mermaid's Dream. A bit of searching in Google Images found me a perfect picture -- named, appropriately, "Mermaid's Dream". Some searching found me a template for the sail, which I imported into Photoshop and used as a base onto which I overlaid a half-transparent version of the image picture. You need one image for the left side, and the reverse of the image for the right side.

All this was after quite a bit of fiddling around to get everything to work right, but the result was well worth it: a distinctive and fine-looking boat (if I do say so myself).


There are several yacht clubs in SL and some good waters to sail in. The Hollywood area recently combined with Nantucket to give a total of 24 connected sailing and island sims. Mowry and Caddo have a couple of other yachting clubs and shops.

I don't feel ready to enter any of the races yet, but it may only be a matter of time and practice. Now if I can just find my hull wax...

Does a mermaid really need a sailboat?

Sitting on the World's Largest Poseball

at Mowry Bay

The Perils of Mare

The other day, my RL counterpart decided to take me out on a photoshoot; the theme being melodrama bondage. Specifically, me bound hand and foot on the railroad tracks. So we found a remote section of track, wrapped me up, and laid me out tetween the rails using a poseball I had dropped a homemade animation into.

But while the Boss was dithering around, fooling with shooting angles, lighting and the like, I was actually run over by a train! It pushed me halfway to the next sim before I fell out of the way and had to be carried back.

I ask you, is that any way to treat a girl?

Hanging Out With the Finny Set

I put a bit of effort into finding the right mermaid outfit. There are only a few shops that cater to merfolk: Merwings in Silver Lake and Emerald Evers' Shop By the Sea being the most notable that I have found. Nora Wayne's Mermaid Hangout has a huge tank with fish and a number of poseballs for you to swim in, as well as merfolk product vendors.

I wanted something that looked fairly realistic, if that term can be applied to something like a mermaid. But I didn't like the shape of the tail fins on most of the selections. The one that I liked was the "Mer Luminous - Fleshy" at Merwings, which I bought, along with an AO and a shell top to keep a PG rating.


It's amazing what you can find on the bottom. Although there are vast expanses of empty seabed, there are a few places with underwater landscaping. And there is the occasional surprise, such as houses I've come across sitting on the bottom in several places. You have to wonder...


The animations that came with the Franimation AO that I got were all right, but I decided to design my own, thinking that I might be able to do a better job. I wanted a slow as well as a fast swim, and a heads-down diving anim instead of just dropping tail-first when you hit the PAGE DOWN button. With the dive anim, you can jump up out of the water and then dive right back in to surprise the sailors on that boat you snuck up on.

I found out that the positions of the shins and feet are critical when making a mermaid animation, at least with the tail I have. If your ankles are too close together or too far apart, the tail skirt and "boots" don't match up correctly. Even the animations I purchased have some matching problems that way. I need to experiment to see if the "boots" can't be eliminated somehow and the "skirt" made longer. I assume there is a reason it's designed the way it is.

I'm still in the process of refining the animations. I'd like to make a fairly complete set, including a variety of sitting poses and maybe a couple of different swimming styles. When I get it like I want it, I'll put it up for sale. So if you're a homo piscipeni, keep tuned to this blog.

How to begin?

It's been over a month since I was "born" into Second Life, the offshot of an avatar who wanted to explore the wild and fantastic sides of Second Life, but who also wanted to keep a "clean" public image in the process. Rather silly, and a bit cowardly, if you ask me. Still, I owe my existence to that hypocracy, so I won't complain. If my Primary wants to blow US$9.95 to bring me to life, I'm all for it.

I was given the name "Mare" because of my fascination with becoming a mermaid: Mare being Latin for "sea". By the way, the correct pronouncation is "MAH-ray", like "Mary" with a softer "a" sound. Not "Mair", please. Any resemblence to a female horse is purely coincidental, and a bit resented by yours truely.

Besides being a merperson, I also have outfits as an angel (both light and dark). I recently bought a set of scripted wings at Material Squirrel Wings. They flap, droop and stiffen, and have Excite compatabilidy (although I wouldn't know what to do with that, of course...). I'm a little disappointed that they don't extend fully, but I imagine there are technical limitations preventing that. I also have a lot of freebie fairy butterfly wings for when the fae mood takes me.

Besides enjoying assuming the aspects of the finned and winged creatures of fantasy, I have to confess that I also am drawn to the Darker Side at times. I'm talking about ropes, chains, cages, and frightening spiky devices. This isn't something that my Primary here or in RL wants to admit publicly. So you may find me occasionally hanging around, as it were, in places like Heaven & Hell (the biggest dungeon complex I know of in SL). I'll be in cuffs, maybe a bit of letther, and not much else (that narrows it down LOL).

So on with the blog. I have a month's worth of things to talk about, so the forcast is for a flurry of posts over the next few days, followed by scattered rantings and periods of quiet neglect. Stay tuned for the fun.