First Anniversary

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of my partnership with my Domina, Rachael Ezvalt. Over the last year we have explored the ins and outs of D/s, I flirted briefly with Domination, using SLV, but we soon realised that my nature was that of a submissive, albeit a sharp-witted (mostly) one, and is now exclusively conducted in RLV, moderated by a Mars Ring of Compliance and a substantially augmented Amethyst collar. Both of those can be thoroughly nasty and fearsome tools in the wrong hands, but in wise hands (like those of my Domina) they are remarkable means of discipline and control.

I have had a wonderful year of changes, both to me, to Domina and to where and how we live. I tried Nekoism – taking it as close to furridom as we could while retaining my personality, a spell as Domina’s little girl (that was NOT a great success) and most recently as a tiny-avatar fairy.

LD Fairy Slave - me!

Currently I am a full-sized pixie-like Fairy, and this I am enjoying immensely. I am still human for a goodly part of the time, and that is a pleasant balance.

Throughout all this, the abiding joy has been Domina’s thorough and professed happiness; both at my successful transformations, and my continued submission to her. The submission now extends into my RL, it has been carried through with care and commonsense and provides satisfaction to us both. We have been together for a year as partners, longer as Dominant and slave, this journey is established and continuing – watch this space!

The Other Side

Now, I am a full-time RLV user. For the last few months I have been using Boy Lane’s adaptation of Henri Beauchamp’s Cool Viewer for Windows. At the advent of the Adult Content Policy (which I fully support in principle, though not in its execution) I was worried that my SL would at best be crippled, and possibly ended. I was wrong. I was able to continue my SL albeit with a crippled Search function.
All this time LL pushed their new viewer 1.23, which, for my system was unusable, since the RLV aspect didn’t integrate properly. Others were more successful, and I realised that my PC was in dire need of upgrading.
That having been done, (to 2GB RAM and an nVidia GeoForce 9400GT 1GB graphics card) I got my SL back. I tried the Emerald Viewer, but the system didn’t seem to like it – I still don’t know why and I didn’t like RLVa.
Now Boy Lane has produced Rainbow Viewer Cool edition 1.22.11 with RLV 1.22b and full Adult compliance plus some fantastic extra features, and it runs perfectly on my system – I am not here to promote Boy’s work – she doesn’t need my endorsement!
Now the big debate is what features are LL going to add to viewer 1.24 and ultimately next year to viewer 2.0? Are there aspects of 3rd party viewers that LL do not like and will not permit? It seems to be so, and Emerald is being pilloried in some quarters for its versatility and amazing utility, including some features that facilitate bad behaviour. The debate in the SL blog is mind-boggling to a non-tekkie such as me.
It is high time that LL allowed the Open-Source community to tailor the next SLV – for us all.
In the meantime, specialist viewers will continue to amplify the SL of the various minorities for which they are optimised. Provided it is not used for griefing or stealing, what is wrong with that?

Busy, busy….!

You know, I should do more of this. Lately, I have been so wrapped up in my SL, and so busy re-establishing my RL that posting any coherent thoughts here was not a possibility.
I am a free agent again in RL (and poorer for it as many have previously found!) but my SL relationship has required nearly all of my effort.
Some people have said that SL relationships and even SL in general are for those who cannot relate in RL. I must disagree. SL allows us to meet far wider skeins of humanity than our physical parameters allow.
In that regard SL is a social website, I suppose. SL, however is far more than that. Some folk maybe do use SL as a glorified chat-room with pictures. Some of the more nepharious activities will soon be curbed, thanks to prurient activity by people in the USA.
The compulsion aspect of that I denigrate, since freedom on the web surely was one of its cornerstones. We (collective term which I cannot disassociate myself from) seem to be intent on removing responsibility for parental control from parents (if you don’t want the responsibility, folks, DON’T HAVE BABIES) and placing it in the hands of unaccountable organisations.
Abuse is not confined to kids though. Some folks really do lose themselves in SL and there are some predatorial folk who are waiting to ensnare them. We should regulate those activities too. We have to protect the vulnerable from abuse by the uncaring.

I’m afraid that this barmy Age-verification process in SL just won’t do that – it is as full of holes as Gruyere cheese. The Adult segregation of activities in SL is about as much use as a set of lace curtains on a window.
We need a means to prevent abuse of vulnerable folk, minors or not. We just need to do it better, and to that end we need reasoned debate – something we just don’t seem to be getting.

Linden Laboratories are too autocratic, many involved residents of SL are just plain paranoid about personal anonimity.

I live a very different SL from my RL and some of my activities are frowned upon by more “vanilla” folk. I will defend my right to live a Second Life as I wish to to the hilt, but I care about those with whom I interract.

We need to move forward to a more caring SL, and a lot of folk need to stop being so selfish. Also and even more critically, LL need to stop and Listen, and having Listened, take what they hear into account, when SL 2.0 is drawn up.
/me gets off her soapbox.

Please, people, SL is good, let’s make it even better!

Well, well, well!

My last post was one on the nature of change. I spent a short time as a free agent in SL and was beginning to like it, when everything had to change: well, I am a submissive, I didn’t feel right out of RLV!
I had to take a while out of SL, since my separation RL from my partner of 18 years finally ended officially with almost unavoidable financial wrangling. (Quick aside: Has anyone ever seen a poor solicitor?) I moved location in RL, only 2 miles , but then I had to get reconnected to the internet.
It had not occurred to me that I might miss the flood of information that spills into one’s RL from the net these days. My SL partner had a PC failure only days before I had to leave and she only got back a couple of days before me – synchronicity or what?
I knew I would miss SL and my partner there, though the degree that we missed each other was breathtaking! There is no substitute for the avatar-to-avatar contact of SL, unless one can be physically with one’s SL partner in RL – letters or emails simply serve to emphasise the isolation one feels.
Well, the isolation is now ended and I am back in SL with my SL lover and dominant – we are both happy now.
Is SL addictive? Maybe – but being loved certainly is!
The most significant thing we (my dominant and I) have done in SL is to move to a lovely island sim and put up our own house and make a lovely garden for our relaxation. For a sub like me, this is as close to heaven as I’ll get!

Plus ca change – plus ca reste meme

I’ve been thinking. Dangerous, I know and likely to cause small brush fires, but there you have it! I also apologise to those who know what the correct French wording for the title should be: J’ apologise. It just seemed more succinct.

There are many using SL today who use it as a means of supplementing/replacing their RL social interactions. The usual reasons are illness or sociopathic tendencies. I suspect I started my SL as one of the latter – my gender orientation issues were coming to an ugly head (see early posts on this blog if you need to know more), but now I am using SL because my RL physiology is failing and I interact more adequately in SL! That life has undergone a fairly major change now – for the better for myself and my partner I truly hope!

On a mission for my SL employer, I have lately spent hours in the SL blogs and fora, learning as much as a I could about SL’s upcoming changes re Adult content. I also looked at the hot debate about the new viewers. I am coming to the belated conclusion that my idle blunderings in SL are but a tiny ripple upon the surface of this MMU.

My SL partner and I will live our second lives as we choose to – I hope that LL will not interfere significantly and possibly, just possibly, SL may get even better for us.

There are wiser and more able folk out there asking all the questions that I require answers for, and they phrase them better than I could, so I will content myself for now to watch, learn and inwardly digest the debate – and hope that I don’t throw up.

This is important, people – don’t screw up.

So it Goes….on and on

Well! I haven’t had time to blog , because I’ve been busy in SL fora, trying to find out just how badly I’ll be affected by LL’s changes.

The more I read, the more I’m convinced that LL’s actions are driven not by any wish to court the Education/Commerce faction, though I’m sure they want to increase their prescence in both those fields. No, it’s a knee-jerk reaction to this upcoming or possible Congressional Enquiry. Time and time again it is seen that LL just cannot be honest with its customers, the residents of Second Life. I do not know why. It is very bad for business when you hide your motivations behind smoke and mirrors, even from some of your own employees!

I now spend a significant time every day trawling through the Blog and the fora (official and unofficial) to find out the latest scuttlebutt. My SL employer needs to be kept informed, and has not the time to sift through the acres of text. Several residents, Argent Stonecutter, Couldbe Yue, DanielRavennest Noe and Innula Zenkova have all posed reasonable questions to LL. None, to my knowledge have received anything like a satifactory reply. We appear to be talking in a vacuum, and I’m beginning to think that LL, seemingly unconcerned that these people are probably at least as net-savvy and skilled as themselves, intends that this is the case. We are being given a place (or now, places) to vent our ire without LL being at all interested in our views.

This is sad, because if LL was straight with us, we would co-operate fully to make SL a safer, saner place for all potential users. No-one in their right mind wishes to have individuals harmed by the experience of SL, be they minors or vulnerable adults, but there are many to whom the Internet and its media form the last bastion of true freedom, apart from the insides of our own heads.

I am left shaking my head in sadness, because although I do not know what the answer is, I do know that LL’s current actions are wrong-headed, arrogant and ultimately suicidal. LL will flush their baby out with the bathwater, and I can hear the gurgling already.

The Way Forward?

I write this post in the thrall of the worst bout of depression I have suffered since I joined SL. I do this intentionally as a form of therapy, in the hope that seeing my words on my screen might kick me out of this hole I’m presently in.

Recently SL has undergone, or begun to undergo some changes which I find intolerable. My Second Lifestyle, which as anyone who has read this blog before will know is very important to me, has allowed me to realise some crucial changes to my persona and allowed me a measure of peace with what I am forced to be in RL. Now, it appears that SL is to be fumigated and sanitised and to be effectively purged of all such as myself in a headlong rush by Linden Laboratories (the pioneers of this graphic interface) to turn SL into a Business and Education tool.

Many perfectly reasonable, intelligent and sane people are being forced either into ghettoes, or out of SL altogether. Still more are becoming dormant or apathetic even if they remain in SL.

It appears that unless we live life in a way that will not offend anyone, dress accordingly and behave chastely, not to mention attending Church, Synagogue or Mosque on our Sabbath, we will be considered pariahs and banished to some high-fenced corral, where, presumably we will continue our “Sordid” lifestyles until the thought-police get us.

I enjoyed a brief flowering of my self-awareness, it was SL but at least it was MY SL. Now, it appears that is at an end. I am mortified.

Addendum 13th May 2009: Yesterday there were two further occurrences which confirmed that Freedom of Life in SL is being curbed. Firstly, Darien Caldwell finally threw her hands up in horror and quit her business, turning everything she had rights to into public domain, full permission…even if Dari returns to SL now, Dari’s Haus is no more. Dari’s Haus was the mainstay of my early months in SL. Secondly, the Women of Athenos became homeless. They had only just moved, but their new landlord, the land owner sold up, citing the new “Adult” content legislation as the cause. Again, a Lifestyle not all approve of, but I know these women – they are good souls on the whole. I cannot but reiterate – this is madness!

To Blog or Not to Blog??

That is indeed the question!

Well, I have no intention of not continuing to blog.  This is simply my account of SL as I see it…from the inside as a resident.

Recently I had the temerity to post in a forum thread that I thought that our profile pictures (pic-tures, OK?) were being interfered with by SL.  Another resident implied that I was paranoid.  Of course I am!  Just because I am paranoid does not mean that they are not out to get me!

Irrespective of that flippancy, I do fervently believe that LL are doing their best to turn SL into a business tool and that that is the principal reason for the sanitisation of the Grid.  I have seen nothing to disabuse me of that notion.

Those of us that use SL as a means to associate and communicate with others at a social level will be pushed out or to one side as the corporate steamroller moves in.

What worries me is that LL will “throw the baby out with the bathwater” if they persist in attempting to make SL a business tool.  There are many reasons why most businesses would not dream of taking SL seriously, and security of information communicated via SL is, perhaps, the most important.

Wake up LL!  Business will not use SL in anything like its present form, and you need your socialsers for a lot longer yet.  I am annoyed that the opinions of so many residents (look at the number of posts on the thread concerning “Adult Content”) are being so blatantly ignored.

So – Are we surprised?

No resident of SL could have failed to hear of the uproar in the Adult part of SL recently.  No one who could see chat or read text anyway.

The “Adult Content” issue has been excercising minds for some weeks now from LL’s original statement regarding the creation of Adult areas and the subsequent segregation (a familiar word to North Americans, I believe) and exiling of all activity and representation of Adult behaviour to those ghettos.

I am relieved that I live on a private island, where such hindrances are currently not enforced.  I cannot help but wonder how long that willl remain the case.

As I understand it, my access to parts of the mainland is now limited.  Because I choose to wear locked shackles and a collar.  It is a sign of my dedication to another resident.

I recently gave a talk to a number of like-minded individuals at the Deitide Sunday Munch, and a transcipt of my crib-sheet appears on Domina Inara Pey’s blog (“Pey’s World”).

Now it appears that the content and aim of my address will be segregated from the rest of SL.  Maybe I failed to comprehend, but I understood that there was such a thing as freedom of speech, thought and deed on the net?

It seems I am naive.  I know that I am disappointed.  I did think that the Lindens would listen – how foolish of me!  I thought that maybe Darien Caldwell was excessively cynical – I’m sorry Dari – you are correct, I am wrong.  Last UK evening Aprille Shepherd sent out a group notice to those of us residents who can be bothered to post on a forum blog thread.  There are over 4 thousand posts on that thread so far.  Nevertheless LL have not listened to a single word of ours.  No, I correct myself – they have listened and have chosen to ignore us.

I’m not going to repeat myself from a couple of posts ago.  This is a black day for anyone in SL with a whit of inventiveness.  Today it is Adult-Oriented creation – what area will LL consider risky next?  Segregation and censorship starts LL off on a very slippery slope.  At the bottom there is a sanitised feeble SL that I for one want no part of.

Oh, by the way, I wish everyone a Happy St George’s Day.

It’s my First Rezday

Simply put, I’ve been in SL for one year. This anniversary comes to many people, I think, with little, or no celebration. Many people only pop into SL when they’re bored, or at a loose end. That is their choice, and no concern of mine.

It does seem to me odd, though. Since the world of SL opened to me back in April last year, via the OnRez viewer and after some promotion on the Lorelei website, I have been immersed, and have met many remarkable people. None more remarkable than my partner and Dominant, Domina Rachael Ezvalt.

To think that my SL would take the form that it has in those early days would have been impossible, and I played with my avatar for a while, not really knowing why I was doing it. My RL partner was becoming a stranger to me and it was clear that I was finally coming to terms with my own strange past (dealt wiith elsewhere on this blog). My partner was changed by hormones used to treat a nasty and life-threatening condition, and would never be the same person again. I had been similarly changed even more crudely, years before due to being born “ambiguous”, i.e, due to chromosome damage, neither “one thing nor t’other”.

SL has, over the last 10 months or so, first enlightened and then empowered me to see myself in a different way. The Ayesha that stumbled into SL last April is long-gone.

Ayesha , as she was in April 2008

Ayesha on her First Rezday – April 2009

Thanks to the loving control of my Dominant since last August 15th, I am more fully formed than I would have dreamed possible. I have made many and lost a few friends on my journey so far, but my SL continues and, I fervently hope, will continue for years to come, so long as SL survives.

To my lover, my confidante and my partner, Domina, I give thanks: Without you none of this would have happened, and my SL would have had no meaning.

I use the terms “lover” and “partner” – yes – SL lover and SL partner – but no-one has had more influence in my whole life, and for that I will be eternally grateful.