What Hath Lludmila Wrought?

Kathy sits at the glass-top wrought-iron table from my childhood.

The Restoration Hardware catalog was inspirational, but I dug into my past for the next project, the glass-top wrought-iron table. I could have saved a ton of prims in the making of this, but I wanted something more like what I grew up with. This table is still in the family. It has been nothing but a pain to move it four times (the glass always breaks), but I love it. The original has an ivy pattern decoration, but there was no way ...


Kathy and the mahogany desk.

There had been a desk, chair, and lamp in my collection of freebies, but they all swamped my avatar. Most avs must start at six and a half feet tall. I shrank mine originally to fit in a space capsule, and left her there at 4' 8" - diminutive but sassy. Subsequent avatars might be taller, but I try to keep them at six feet or under. Note the embossed leather top to the desk. Nice touch!

Kathy experiences a script error on the fainting couch.

I'd always wanted a fainting couch in RL, but a) it doesn't seem likely I'd find one I wanted in my price range and b) I don't have anywhere to put it. The next best thing is to make a virtual one! I had trouble with it until I saw one for sale in-world. Aha! But what these pieces really need are pose balls to put avatars in the right positions. And I don't know the secrets of pose ball creation. They are balls ... with pose animations in them, but they need something else. So I dissected one to uncover its secrets. Once that was done, I could cut-and-paste from existing materials. Mwah-ha-haaa!
I needed to find a pose that would fit this piece of furniture and Ms. Qunhua was helping me when I tried a pose that just wasn't working because the script had self-destructed. It did, however, resemble an actual "faint." So I took a picture of it. This piece still needs a little work, but I was pleased with the overall result. Hmm, a better texture would be nice as well.
I have now mastered Stealing Ideas and Cobbling Things Together through a process called Trial and Error. I am so proud!

Building, Continued

Lludmila builds, "Ker-CHOW!"

For my next project, I tried making something house-like. Avatars don't need much. And if we think there's any such thing as privacy in SL, we're seriously deluded. But I made a nice rectangular building with lots of windows for light. Originally it had "sliding doors" that were phantom and you could walk through them, but I wasn't able to maintain that after linking the parts. Now I just leave that bit open.
Kathy sits in a freebie deck chair in front of the little house.

A house in SL is just a place to keep furniture, so I pulled some furnishings out of my inventory and stuck them in. For the most part, they were just the wrong size. And, besides, I hadn't had the pleasure of making them. This is like my RL jewelry. Sure, I could buy that piece, but isn't it that much more satisfying to have made it myself, even if it does turn out a little wonky?
Lucky for me, the Restoration Hardware catalog I didn't ask for arrived in our mailbox. In it was the cedar chaise longue I almost bought 8 years ago but instead went for the wrought iron look for the patio at our new house. Also, there was a ton of simply designed furniture and my beady little eyes goggled.A chaise longue isn't enough for Lludmila, she has to make a couch and fire pit as well!

Okay, so I went a little crazy. I have some outdoor furniture now and I have to make the fire pit as well. Heh, heh. Funny story about the fire pit and why there is no fire in it (at least in this picture) ...
Once upon a time I built a fire pit and looked through my inventory to see if there was any fire I could just stick in it. I had several choices, but didn't know what they looked like. Fire is a particle emitter. It has a script embedded in an object and little, or not so little, objects (the particles) are emitted from that location. They can spread far or not so far. If you want to move the emitter, you have to find the object and click on it. If you want to delete it, ditto.
The first fire I rezzed to look at was an easy target with logs and everything. It was a bit too large for the fire pit. I deleted it. The second one was a bonfire. It was only made of particles and the emitter. And it was huge. I tried to find the main object with alt + left click and zooming in. I couldn't see it. I right clicked and deleted at random ... and suddenly, the ground disappeared. I clicked some more, thinking I'd finally seen my target, but nothing was happening. Why not?
Well, when the floor disappeared, so did I. My avatar plummeted to the ground and I was too far away to make any changes in anything. I tp'd back. The fire, the rocks, the benches, were all hanging in mid-air. I zoomed in on the bonfire again and deleted it. Embarrassed, I IM'd Milosun (the owner of the sandbox) to tell him I had burnt half of it down.
Lludmila surveys the carnage after the Great Conflagration That Burned Down the Eduisland Sandbox.

Adventures in Building

Lludmila models the bun she made for the back of her head and the necklace (see photo above her head for the front).

I came to Second Life (tm) for the library and librarians and I stayed for the friends I made. But in the middle there, I tinkered with the idea of making things. I like to make things in real life (no tm): mostly using needles (beading, sewing, a knit here and there and perhaps a crochet) and sometimes just cardboard and a mat knife. I refinish furniture. If I need to know something, I just get a book on it and read up. So, I thought I'd be able to make things in SL (that Second Life tm thing*). It was harder than it looked. I got a great deal of pleasure out of taking clothing forms and applying new textures and combining them. I was able to create shapes and add textures to them easily enough, but it was time consuming. When I tried making small things, like a necklace, it became very frustrating. One day I was hanging around a virtual campfire and someone handed out marshmallows on sticks (in flames, too - most humorous) and someone said, "We need s'mores!" So the next time I was in a sandbox, I made a virtual s'more and called it a s'less.Lludmila creates a s'less (like a s'more, only not quite).

At some point I discovered the fun of stalking the wild freebie and that took up a lot of my unstructured time on SL. Then I became a child. I got so nervous about being out amongst strange adults (as nervous about my own behavior as their reactions), that I curtailed some of my Great White Hunter activities and stayed in the sandbox. I unpacked boxes of freebies and deleted some clothing that I had once appreciated and now wouldn't be caught virtually dead in. After a conversation with a friend who builds a lot of stuff, I decided there was a more profitable usage of my time. I would build something. And I wouldn't try small things again, because that was just crazy. I would build something large, using simple shapes. And immediately the idea of a round gazebo in marble struck me.

Karrot inspects her handiwork.

It got pretty fiddly because I couldn't just leave it as an open space. I had to put in curtains and show off my ability to make something flexi. Somehow, it turned out to be a phantom object (I could walk straight through the columns) and I had trouble with my alpha layers so the columns kept disappearing, making bits hard to work with. They were there, just invisible. There's not a whole lot you can do with some of that, just try to remember where the bits were supposed to be and click and hope. Fixing the phantom columns, though, meant taking the whole thing apart and relinking it. In the end, though, I was pleased with what I'd created, but felt I could do better.

Pink marble is all well and good, but I wanted to try another color, so I used the green to make a new gazebo, this time perhaps a little smarter. I was able to make sure I was starting with non-phantom materials. I wanted some contrast and so I made the plinths darker. I wanted an airy roof that would have vines around it (when I got some). I wanted nicer sheers as curtains. Doric style columns sufficed before and while wondering if Ionic was possible, I came across a texture that I thought could pass for a minimalist Corinthian style. I tinted it a greyish green and stuck it at the top. Then I patted myself upon the back for being so clever.
Making the second gazebo went a lot faster. I was gathering confidence. I now thought I could tackle a square.

*You know, this is just plain stupid. If I write about the Kleenex (and it actually is that brand) I have in my pocket I don't put a tm. If I whinge and bitch about Microsoft I don't put a tm. It's just a blog, fercryinoutloud.

Great Social Experiment, Part the Deux

Karrot in her "military" look for the Humanism discussion. On my monitor at home, by the way, Karrot (and, in fact, everyone) is chunkier. She looks like she needs to eat some cookies in these photos.

Did I ever get over being an adult in a child's avatar? I guess so. I spent a lot of time in my sandbox (it's not really "my" sandbox, but other people hardly ever go there), but I also went to all the functions I normally go to: the Bookstacks Quiz, Bookmooch Social (did I mention I'm a librarian?), the Info International Reference Desk, InfoGroupies parties. I felt more comfortable around people I knew, even though they were not participating in the experiment (unlike Grizzy who felt like she was the only one dressed for Hallowe'en). I could be more myself and people would understand.Lonely little Karrot in her sandbox ... with debris other people have left behind.

I also went out and stalked the Wild Freebie, thanks to FabFree. [And now it all comes back to me how I probably wound up with those bondage pose balls.] I was a little more nervous about hanging out with adults, but nothing untoward happened. I had an nice chat with another Great White Hunter (or perhaps she was blue) about my avatar. I couldn't remember where exactly I'd gotten it, but it was a freebie. Most people are aware of the controversy about child avatars, but I never ran into any negativity about my wearing it (other than my one friend who was creeped out). No one accused me of being a pervert or asked me to leave, but how much abuse could I expect out of only one week? A number of people thought I was cute, some of them were surprising. I really didn't expect a comment from the head of our Humanism group. I had made a special effort to dress for the theme (Humanism and the Military), going so far as to make a little label with my avatar's nomme de guerre on it (see top photo).


Karrot at the BookMooch discussion, in her "I Want to Make Cookies" outfit. Sal, on the right, is going through her week as Intellectual Dude. Hee!


Karrot at a Librarian's Pool Party. I had to watch the dance for a while to make sure it was "child appropriate" - unlike the "caramel" dance I would have no compunctions about performing. I made the "fabulous" inner tube, by the way. I might have had modesty in mind. I didn't have a child's bathing suit and just removed the prim skirt from an outfit. I thought it needed something more to be more "beachy." Karrot loved the waterslide in the background ... but so would Lludmila.



Karrot at the Bookstacks Quiz, watching Chromatophore morph into a Steampunk Chimpanzee.

Karrot at the Science Friday broadcast. Karrot loves Ira Flatow.

Long about Saturday when I realized there would be four more days of the experiment, I nearly melted down. I felt so constricted by what I anticipated would be the scrutiny of others and I wanted to bust out ... um, on several levels. I really like the avatar's look. I think she's cute and sweet, but I think I'd rather be a dwarf. [I like dwarfs. Michael Dunn was a favorite of mine. I was crushed by his untimely death and remember exactly where I was when I heard about it.] I want to be an adult with the option of adult things to do. I enjoy being an adult who has the options to be childish. Where's that waterslide?

In memoriam: Michael Dunn









Three more days ... Two ... My book group met the night of the Last Day, so I missed almost everyone else's experiences. I'll have to read the transcript. What little I heard didn't surprise me. People felt awkward in their different avatars. I don't usually, but I think I went out of my way to choose something that would make me feel awkward, or, at least, that would be the greatest challenge. I can't imagine what avatar I could put on that would be more challenging ... unless perhaps it is the meat puppet. Yeah, definitely the meat puppet. I'd have to go for gross.

That Great Social Experiment

Karrot

No, not Second Life, Grizzy's annual "Walk a Mile in Someone Else's Avatar's Shoes" fest. Okay, so she calls it the Race/Gender Experiment. It was so interesting last year, she decided to do it again.

I went through all sorts of contortions over what to do with my avatar this year. Tall, bald black dude? Used it last year. Black woman? Do that all the time. Man? Ditto. How about a tall white woman with huge breasts? I actually built one of those, but then decided I wasn't taking this seriously.

There was a discussion on Furries, Tinies, and Neko (anthro-kitties) I attended and considered experiencing the "fursecution" they talked about. Apparently, humanoid avatars think Furries and Neko are sex-crazed. Tinies, they just seem to think, get under foot and suck bandwidth with all their prims (not much more than the average hair-do, I should think). In the end, I couldn't find a furry avatar that was 1.) cheap enough or b.) aesthetically satisfying. Then I had what I thought was the brilliant idea of a child avatar.

Now, there's an oppressed minority! I read a lot about the brou-haha over sexual age play and the defenses that the child avis put up. I'm occasionally sexually harassed in SL, but that hardly bothers me. What can they do to me? If I don't want to read/hear it, I can mute them. If they bump into me, I can leave instantly and they are unable to follow. I can also report them. And it's more fun to dodge them and pretend I have no idea what they're talking about. If I am an adult inside a little cartoon child, it should be no big deal.

So I went kid avatar and clothing shopping. And wasn't that an eye-opener! If anyone else attempts this, I recommend sunglasses. The bright primary colors were about to kill me. What, no pastels? Anything you can imagine for your children or grandchildren in real life is available in pixelform. And they have playground equipment to keep your child avatar busy while you shop.

I also solicited some info from Marianne McCann who has a child avatar and I'd read some of her comments on Flickr and visited her exhibit, "Why a Kid?" in SL last year. I was trying to understand why someone would want to portray a child. Marianne is very articulate and positive. With regarding the joys of being a kid she says, "being able to experience a better childhood than you may have had IRL. Getting a chance to relive youth. Being able to have the things denied you as a RL child, whether it be a toy, a pony, or even simply a loving family. With those who go to inworld schools, it can not only be a place to explore their role, but also heal bad school time experiences."

This should sound like fun, but as someone who still buys toys for herself (real ones, plush ones, puppets, etc.) and plays with them (er, okay, some of it might possibly be for work), what was the difference between the adult Lludmila and the child Karrot on a carousel?

She was also pretty frank about the problems with the image child avatars have, that people assume they are into age sex play and either harass the child avatars verbally or "physically" by bumping into them, make advances toward them (ew! ew!), or sim and business owners will ban them from their property. Pretty harsh toward someone who may just want some happy childlike experiences.

I'm afraid the negative aspects of being a child avatar were foremost in my mind. Frankly, once in the avatar and out in "public" I felt creepy. I avoided adults. There were other children (not many) but I was too shy to talk to them. Good grief! This is my childhood all over again! Who wants that? I often think that when people wish they were younger. I worked hard to get to this point in adulthood and I'm not willing to give it up.

I tried an area I had inadvertantly visited as my adult avatar and found far too many adults there, several with sex-oriented labels. And more kept coming. They were also suspiciously quiet, which means they were operating in Instant Message, to keep their conversations private. Even creepier!

Then one of them asked me if I was a demanding eight year old. I responded that my mommy had told me not to talk to strangers. "Even if they can give you what you want?" Hmm, definitely not them. I left, feeling very very very icky. This was a feeling totally new to me. I don't ever recall having any kind of interaction in real life with an adult, or even an older child, that made me feel that way. Of course, my judgment is colored by the experience of adulthood, which is, almost by definition, sexual.

I wasn't the only one creeped out by the new me. A great SL friend took one look at me and said to put him in the "totally creeped out column." Another friend added, "You know the saying: The internet, where men are men, women are men, and children are FBI." Other avatars (mostly female) have just thought I was adorable. "I just wanna hug you," said one, "now go brush your teeth and get into bed." Now, there's a healthy reaction!

Thursday night Grizzy's group got together to venture out and visit some public venues to see how others reacted to their new avatars. Others had chosen a different sex (than their usual SL sex - and let's not get our panties in a bunch over the use of the word; "gender" is for language majors), different shape (fatter or thinner), burkhas, new skin color (black, white, blue), and even a wheelchair. We are spending the whole week like this. Our first stop was the Ahern Welcome Area, a PG oasis for newbies ... and griefers. I don't know when I've been so appalled. And I use the "f" word in real life. Okay, not in the Children's Room, but, you know, casually, around the house, when the spaghetti boils over or the cat tears a ruddy great hole in my ear. No, wait - that's the "s" word. Never mind.

Every conceivable use of graphic language was flying by, both in chat and voice. I found a quiet area behind some ferns and watched other people.

Keeping in mind that it would look bad for a child to walk up to an adult and start a conversation, I decided just to watch ... and turn off the sound. I kept up mostly with the group IM, which tuned out the obnoxious stuff. The people there didn't turn a hair at seeing us. Anything went, and if our titties weren't hanging out, we weren't even noticed.

I did see someone asking about where to get clothes. They were literally Born Yesterday. When no one else there responded, I clicked on them and sent an Instant Message with the info that I had. I recommended going to the Info International Reference Desk where someone could better direct them on how to earn money, etc. "She" apparently was hoping to earn some cash for sex. Good luck to her. Too much of it for free, I'm afraid. But I told her how to use the Search function to find places by subject. And she wanted better breasts. Come to think of it, I think she was in the right place to find this stuff out, not that the librarians would have a problem with answering her questions.

I was careful to stay out of sight during this, because of the avatar. It's fine to say you're supposed to act as you normally would, but I cannot, because of the nature of the avatar. I'm chafing at not being able to wade in with my usual sexual innuendo. And to discuss where you could get laid in SL with an adult avatar seems also beyond the pale. On the other hand, I didn't want to leave a newbie out an vulnerable like that: "Hello! Hello! I don't know what I'm doing! Someone please grief me!"

We opted to leave early because the place was so obnoxious. I must lead a sheltered existence in SL that I hadn't run into anything like this before. My own "home," the Isabel InfoHub, while annoying, is quieter and practically Disneyesque in its restraint. I hadn't felt that way about it before; I avoid the place like the plague usually. It seems a haven by comparison.

Our next stop was the Blarney Stone, an Irish pub. Little Karrot was so strung out by her experience that she needed a double Shirley Temple. She had to make do with a Kool-Aid, straight. [In my childhood I had gone to a restaurant with my parents and their friends and when the drink orders were taken I actually asked for a Shirley Temple, "and make it a double" just to amuse them. I'd much rather have had a coke. But that's me all over: go for the joke.] There was another child avatar there (aside from Rosmairta, who is in the group), but I had no idea what to say to her! I checked her profile and was reduced to asking her how old she was. I recall age and grade level were important to us when we were young. Although she sat down next to me, she said nothing. And that made me a little nervous, but again this is colored by my adult consciousness.

Our third stop was Yadni's, which was strangely empty of newbies and griefers. There was just one avatar in search of a toaster. He claimed it was an emergency. Sometimes you just have to love SL.

All in all, I think my child avatar has affected me more than people I've interacted with. I feel an obligation to not incite other avatars into making sexual advances (by trying to strike up a conversation). I don't want to get too involved with other child avatars because I'm not going to be in this body much longer. Besides, I loathe babytalk. Not that I don't use babytalk, mind you. Worse than that, I use it in real life with my cats both talking to them and then answering myself. When I talk to children in my work capacity, I speak to them as short adults. I soften my voice, but I don't talk down to them. Most of the ones that talk to me speak in what appear to be non-sequiturs, but not babytalk.

Okay, maybe they say, "Where's fwoggy?" I respond with, "Mr. Toad? He went home [aka: dropped dead]. We have tadpoles now. Did you see the tadpoles?" "I see one. I have a cat." "That's nice. I have two cats." "My uncle's in jail." Pause. "How interesting." You learn so much about kids' families, especially in the puppet theatre. Kids are like little tape recorders, witness this exclamation from a very small child: Very small annoyed child in puppet theatre: Gah-dam oo, immah haahse! [Goddam you, in my house!]. Well, if they aren't going to mince words, why should I?

I will be so glad to get out of this body, put on another inch and a half, some knockers, and go find someone to flirt with me (although they apparently have to tell me that's what they're doing, which explains a lot about my dating problems in my pre-married existence). Being a kid? It's not for everyone.

Poster at the entrance to Second Life Children where "kid" avatars can meet under safe conditions and give each other support.

It's About Time

I've been annoying my co-workers with all this Second Life stuff and they're tired of it, I'm sure. I had meant to create a new blog for commentary on my adventures in Second Life, but only now am getting around to it.
I can hear the collective sigh of relief from my workplace. They won't have to wade through the SL stuff anymore. I tried, lord knows I tried, to interest people in this, but they didn't even fall for the Religion in Second Life slideshow I did.
Oh well.