Everyone has had a busy few weeks with festive celebrations and the start of a New Year. None of which I blogged about because, well everyone else was, and given the year I had in 2023, I skipped the “Year Review” post too.
However I couldn’t let today’s news go by without comment. The dates of Fantasy Faire 2024, the event of the Second Life year for many, have been announced. So it’s time to mark your calendar and cancel/make no plans for just under 3 weeks:
18th April – 5th May 2024
Below is the announcement post by Sonya Marmurek.
Somewhere in the Mists the giraffes graze. They reach for the leaves of Yggdrasil, wade in the waters of Glimmering Meadows. On occasion a clip-clop of unicorn hooves can be heard in the distance. A snuffle of a hedgehog under the most royal of shrubberies feels more sleepy than alarmed. The Fairelands winter in the […]
The Alpha Testing is open to Residents with a Premium Plus subscription, so I put in an application straight away and was accepted.
A couple of days later I have the app running on my phone and it’s so much better than I’d have expected at such an early stage.
After a few false starts (there are issues with passwords and mine was too complicated) I was able to log in.
The first thing you’re greeted with is a basic movement tutorial:
The movement controls felt a bit like Roblox, which is no bad thing, it means exiting phone gamers will get the hang of it pretty quickly. However I’m not one of those and I was dreadful at playing Roblox, so will need more practice.
My avatar and the skybox around me loaded up surprisingly fast and looked pretty good quality for an Alpha mobile app. Although my avatar does look a little perturbed it’s only because I had been fiddling with face animations on my previous login on my laptop.
Since the skybox was pretty cramped,I thought I should check out some more spacious surroundings, fortunately some are provided. These are accessible from the login screen, or a menu once logged in.
I chose the Nom Nom Cafe Library from the list and hit Teleport. This was an interesting experience, in that your view switches to one form above, as if you are being dropped from a great height to your destination, but looks quite cool.
On the ground the surroundings rezzed in pretty quickly and the place looks quite lovely on a mobile screen.
So far I’ve just tried basic moving about and teleporting to places and I’m pretty impressed with what I’ve seen. The graphics are detailed and didn’t appear to stutter as I moved. However a fairly modern smartphone or tablet is required to run the app, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. I will have to see how it works on my untidy homestead and other non-showcase locations.
I’ve not tried any kind of communication yet, so I’ll follow up with another post on how well those aspects work at a later date.
If you have a Premium Plus membership and want to give the app a try, you can find the details for applying in the press release above.
At the weekend I attended a Burleque set at a new-ish club called Libidine. There was a live singer before 2 hours of tunes with DJ’s Anj & Tori that got the party going.
The event gave me a chance to try out something completely different to my usual style.
However outside the club I found a teleporter to the main landing area of the region. Here I learned that Libidine isn’t just this club, it’s an island full of lots of different places to explore and hang out.
A place for lovers to explore and get lost together. Secluded places to explore and enjoy each others company – romantic encounters. Where limits do not exist.
Libidine land description
Go check it out, but remember it’s an Adult rated region.
After a rather tedious trip to the libary in my last post, I’ve now got some lovely stuff to show you. More from PixelBox, an absolutely gorgeous skin from Fallen Gods and flying ship from En Pointe.
Today’s outfit is the kind of thing you’d often see me in, steampunk style turned rocker.
The photos were taken on my fabulous flying galleon, created by Ketsui Naidoo. If you’re a Fantasy Faire Fan you’ll notice it looks remarkably like the FaireChylde (the venue for many parties), that’s because she made that too! If you want your own, she currently has a 35% sale on here entire store (excluding very new items) for a whole month.
You do need a bit of space for one of these, because that’s the tower of a full-size castle at the bottom of the photo.
Flambois Academy has a library, of course it does, it’s an Academy. However it doesn’t have quite what the new girl is after, so she’s off to New Babbage Repository For Medical Arts and Science to try and find what she needs. Maybe some extra credit will offset all the trouble she’s been getting into since she arrived.
As one of my favourite steampunk/gothic stores, I couldn’t help but to shout about it and put one of their outfits together to show you. In fact they have stuff on sale in multiple places right now. At the Mainstore and on Marketplace they have their Fall Sale where everything is 99L$. On top of that everything at their Halloween Shop & Hop booth is 50% off.
The Halloween Shop & Hop closes on 5th November, but the Mainstore sale doesn’t close until the 15th, so you have plenty of time to grab a bargain!
I think I’ll be bringing you a few more PixelBox outfits in the near future!
It is said that on All Hallows Eve the barrier between the realms of the living and the dead is at its thinnest. Who’s to say that other such barriers become thin, perhaps between the realms of Angels and Demons?
Maybe the Angels go and play in Hell, or the Demons in Heaven? Do younger Angels dare each other to go take a selfie in Hell without getting caught? They’d need to dress the part so they don’t stand out. They also have to dim their natural aura so they don’t light the whole place up, which was a skill difficult to master for some.
The Demons really don’t like this game the Angels play, but there’s not much they can do about it. The touch or any physical contact of an Angel will turn most demons to dust like a vampire in the midday sun, even just their aura is painful. All a demon can hope to do is chase them away, or have human slaves attempt to capture and drag them to a crossing point. They did try an assortment of projectile weapons against the Angels, but generally this turned out to be pretty futile.
So while the Angels play their games, the Demons just go torment the Living instead.
One of my favourite songs is Wish I Had an Angel by Nightwish, it has some very enticing lyrics and every so often I’m inspired to create an Angel avatar. This time there’s a second reason to create one, the Fallen God & Goddess Contest 2023.
While I was exploring the Renaissance Festival event I thought about how I would stage the photo. I wanted a classic pose, but one that didn’t put me in a position that would obscure the details of the Fallen Gods items. Which was when I came across this gorgeous harp, which was perfect.
Last dance, first kiss Your touch, my bliss Beauty always comes with dark thoughts
If you want to participate in the Fallen Gods contest, entries are open until 7th October and voting begins on the 9th. Details of how to apply and the rules can be gound on the Fallen Gods Blog.
Last night I attended the Bard Circle weekly event held at Centauria, home to the Ancient Order of Centaurs in Second Life.
I’ve written about Centauria before but this was my first visit to the Bard Circle event.
When I arrived about 20 mins into the session it was all very quiet. When I made my presence known, I was greeted warmly (as always at Centauria) and it was explained to me that they were all busy writing. Last night the attendees had been given 15 minutes to write a poem or story on the subject of armour. I chose just to observe and listen. When the time was up, the poems were read out in Voice by either the author (or the event host if the author preferred) as well as being displayed in local chat.
The resulting texts were very entertaining and a few times surprising that some had been able to write so much in such a short time.
The Bard Circle is held each Monday at 1pm SLT at the Centauria Tavern.
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.
