Saturday 9th of November was the opening night of The Gathering, a post-apocolyptic themed event at a dance club. That’s quite an over-simplification, but to the point. I had a wander around the venue a few hours before the event and it looks great. I was able to attend part of the opening event which had drawn a crowd of 101 avatars at my last count. The Gathering is running for 21 days until 30th November, so you have plenty of time to go check the place out and maybe make it to some of the scheduled Flagship Events. The event is taking place at The Basilica, a dance club that I’m not familiar with that has been around for some years.
There was quite a crowd for the opening event.Scene from promo video.
Now Halloween has passed I’m going to try and refocus my blog on its original intention of what I’ve been up to in Second Life.
So I’m starting with last nights antics; I went to a Foam & Bikini party at my friend’s club, Cornerstones.
The party was also a RezDay (Second Life Birthday) celebration for a couple of the regulars so there was a really good atmosphere. 2pm SLT onwards is a good time to drop by, particularly towards the end of the week and over the weekend.
It’s that time of year when lot of spooky fun places appear all over the Second Life Grid. This being the first of however many I get around to visiting and writing about. This location is also a store hunt setting, although I didn’t participate in that, I’m here for the Spooky! I’ve pictured a few of the areas in this place, but there’s plenty more to be seen.
Remember to accept Experience prompts, turn up the audio and graphics sliders for the best spookiness.
Right after releasing Western Rider featured in my last post, Salt & Pepper released another outfit, simply called Burlesque. It really does speak for itself.
I’ve been a little slack lately in my blogging, but it’s not that I’ve not been doing anything. My blog is after all to tell the tale of my Second Life, I’ve just not written it down. But I did take pictures, so rather than have them just sit on my laptop, I thought I’d do a recap of what random stuff I’ve been up to recently.
Firstly I went to an event at Belliseria Bureau of Bureaucracy (BBB) that I’d never heard of until my friend Tori invited me along to thier Western themed event.
We also went out to Muddy’s Music cafe another time, picked randoly off the Destination Guide. I’d never been there and it had been a long time since Tori had too. However you won’t see either of our avatars in the photos. We thought it’d be fun to have an “Alts Night Out” and take some secondary avatars out for the evening.
Last night I went to a Petites Party at Centauria, home of the Second Life Centaur community. However since it was an impromptu decision, I was the only “biggie” present, but it was good fun for an hour.
There were a few other places I visited, but nobody wants to see photos of shops! I’ve a few ideas floating around for future posts, so hopefully I’ll get those done soon and there won’t be such huge gaps in between me writing here.
I was scrolling through a Second Life social media feed yesterday when something yellow jumped out at me. It was a post about a location called Neo Machina that was no longer going to be closing. Now I’d not heard of this place, but it seemed to be an urban cyberpunk setting, which just happened to feature yellow neon. Long term readers will get the relevance of this, but not new readers. My long running sci-fi/ cyberpunk roleplay character is a courier for a fictional company by the name of All Mars Zone Interplanetary Shipping (AMZ for short) and their company colours are black & yellow. So I just had to go check the place out.
This Neo Machina is an interpretation by the owner of a much older location of the same name that disappeared a few years ago, in the way Second Life venues sadly tend to.
I had a good wander around this place and it definitely gives you the vibe of the city description below.
NEO MACHINA was once a sprawling and thriving industrial city, ruled by corporate dominance under supervision of the ruthless Authority. In the year 3285 humanity realized their vision in creating engines that could take them to the furthest reaches of the stars, and beyond. What they failed to avoid, and create proper fail-safes for, was the complete degradation of time and space due to the manner of which they travel: Through the synthesis and ignition of dark matter.
Left in the wake of one thousand Life vessels carrying billions of people in Ark Cores off to find new planets and new homes, is a deteriorating planet, and an exploding star. In the atmosphere hangs a wormhole, left behind by the corporations that abandoned the planet under threat of certain doom. All who remain struggle to keep hold of some normalcy of life one hundred years later as the continued threat of total collapse looms above.
Can they rebuild? Will those that remain find a way to survive?
Welcome point notecard
Given the references to long distance travel and struggling for survival, I’m sure there might be a place for AMZ in there somewhere to supply the crumbling planet.
Yesterday evening I attended a show. I wasn’t sure what to expect and I was blown away by what I saw.
This is the description I was given:
“Love Robot 69”, created by Chrix & Lalie using the Bloom system, is SLEA’s latest particle show, succeeding “Flower of Evil”. This performance delves into themes of sex robots and AI companions, merging sensuality and technology. A visual journey that encourages reflection on virtual relationships, offering a perspective on the evolution of intimacy in the digital age.
I’ve seen virtual fireworks and numerous particle light shows in Second Life before, but this topped all of them by miles.
Before the show starts there is simply a female avatar rotating in the air. When I use the word “avatar” here I do not mean the forms in which we inhabit the virtual world, I mean the classical interpretation that has existed long before computers. It has a number of definitions, often relating to a god’s form on Earth to the more abstract. In this case I’m going for:
“The physical embodiment of an idea or concept; a personification.”
Although by the end of the show, you may think it’s the former definition!
This creation is roughly twice the height of the average Second Life human avatar. Despite the suggestive title this is a PG presentation, so anyone can enjoy it.
The lights go out, music starts and you’re presented with a stunning display of sound,colour and motion for the best part of an hour.
I took way more snapshots than I could possibly fit here, so I’ve picked a selection to try and illustrate this amazing display.
As it says in the description, this is an SLEA (Second Life Endowment for the Arts) grant funded project and the Lab certainly got their money’s worth this time. It’s a collaboration between Chrix (chrixbed) and Lalie Sorbet that’s definitely worth an hour of your time.
I enquired when the show would be repeated and was told:
“It will be set in the next couple of days [to run] for 3-4 weeks.”
Update 17th Feb 2024: The show is now running on a constant loop, so you can go see it anytime. This means that you could arrive at any point during the presentation, but as a sort of guide as to where you’re at my photos are in chronological order. The video clip at the top and first two images in the gallery are from the start.
A final Note of Caution. I make no secret inworld of the fact that I have epilepsy. Fortunately however I am not particularly “photosensitive”, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the show. This fantastic display contains rapidly changing lights and motion, if you do suffer from photosensitivity of any kind, watch at your own risk.
It’s that time again to wander, slightly bemused at what we see, around another wonder by Cica Ghost. This latest creation is called “Nostalgia” as usual it’s best to let the pictures speak for themselves because there is a lot to explore here:
So it’s just as well there’s a few places to sit and enjoy the view.
Exploring the latest version of Goatswood by Hera, a beautiful location in Second Life.
Back in 2019 I wrote about Goatswood, created by Hera, who has created a wide range of stunning locations over the years. What I visited back then was a reinvention of a much older build; now a larger version is back again for us all to enjoy one again.
As before your arrival point is in a rural railway station, but this is not Goatswood itself, it is a place called Mortchester. You must travel to Goatswood by clicking it’s named platform sign, there’s another sign for Houdstead, but for now I’m headed to Goatswood.
Leave the platform through the station building and you emerge onto the main street.
The layout of the village encourages you to head straight down the main street, but I find usually there’s more interesting stuff if you take a less direct route, so I went down the path to the right. This leads you through to the back of the buildings, where you’ll find various animals before arriving back on the street.
It’s these little details that make Hera’s creations and bring them to life, because many of the houses on the streets are empty shells but give the feeling of a busy place.
Where I came out onto the street was adjacent to the Wild Man Inn so I obviously had to investigate.
The inn is as cozy as beforThe inn is the same, but the artwork on the walls has changed.
The inn is the same one as that from my previous visit, which was to be expected with it being the same village. Here though there is a lovely beer garden out the back where you can enjoy a drink or two if the weathers nice.
Leaving the inn back onto the main street you can see how much larger this incarnation of Goatswood really is.
I shall stop my step-by-step wandering here and just show a few of the places you may see when you come to explore for yourself.
This version of Goatswood is much larger than the one I explored in 2019 and is full of little gems of detail to be found as well as places to just chill out with your friends.
I would suggest bringing a lantern or torch with you, in case it’s dark when you visit, putting your environment settings to Midday may allow you to see where you’re going but some of the atmosphere gets lost. I made seperate visits at different times to experience the different atmospheres of day and night.
Inferno is the creation of Hera, creator of the Drune series of Dystopian Cyberpunk cityscapes,Goatswood,Golgothica as well as Gigerpunk that I have yet to visit.
Inferno
This was only out for a week so here it is again.; I have wanted to do something Hell like for a long time, then just recently I did something totally unrelated that inspired me. I have used a very familiar layout which I like because it is just a set of focal points rather than a whole sim full of space to fill with nothing in particular.
(From Notecard at arrival point)
I however didn’t read the notecard until later, I prefer to be surprised when I visit somewhere new. When you take the teleport you arrive in a suitably dark doorway with a very ominous view.
A few steps foeward out of the shadows and you see, yes it really does look like Hell.
To either side you see a series of rather narrow looking bridges connecting together what are best described as temples.
The centre path is the one I chose though on my journey through the perilous paths.
Here the paths branched off to the other destinations. These little temples were what you would expect here, creepy statues and decor, but not all the same, so it’s worth exploring!
As you can see in the quote from the notecard above, last time this build appeared it was only for a week. I asked Hera how long it would be around this time and the reply was “probably not very long.”
So get a move on if you want to see this place before it’s gone!
(That goes for GigerPunk too apparently, so I and you will have to dash to see that one as well!)
