What's In My Closet? Why Do I Bother?

Try as I might, I just can't see myself as the glamorous sort. Slap on some makeup, a fancy dress, style my hair, add some jewelry, and ... dunno. To tell the truth, I don't think I can carry it off. In Real Life I wear (not all at once) hospital scrubs, shorts, t-shirts, hooodies, jeans, Crocs, or anything I can find so I'll be comfy and nondescript. In Second Life, I have a cage dress, heels, and dark makeup with bleached blonde hair.

WTF?

I'm totally convinced that this combo would look much better on anyone but me. A nagging thought of redemption tugs at me, though ... "What if I wore outfits like this in appropriate places?!?" Hanging out in Bay City or a nice forest in a cage dress? Probably not places one is likely to see this sort of outfit. Maybe I need to get out more.

The grown up Zyx can get away with it. It is her nature.

Why Have Just One?

Jo Yardley started a meme on her blog.

See? I have four lives (at least). From top left and moving clockwise: Uccie (Uccello Poultry) Galway, my "adult" character; Xandah Resident, my world explorer; Zyx Resident, the quiet and enigmatic pixy; Zyx Flux, a child avatar and gardener pixy.

But wait! There's more!! Each character is also a polymorph. Uccie is often a dragon, a bird, a furry cat, or any of a couple hundred other avatars or skins. Xandah has a cute furry cow avatar and sometimes romps about as a tiny elephant. Zyx Resident seldom changes except for her skin. She has a lovely deep, deep blue skin that appears nearly black but also has a "human" option. Zyx Flux sometimes sports a tiny form such as a bunny or a kitten and is also a very colorful petite-sized pixy.

So why have just one life when you can lead another, and another, and (dare I say it?) another? It wasn't a lack of a Real Life that brought me to Second Life. Rather, Our World lets me have many lives filled with adventure, travel, creativity, and more that I just can't manage to have in Real Life at the moment.

Why Are You Human in Second Life?

Weighing on my mind of late is the question of how we represent ourselves in Second Life, particularly as I re-read Greg Bear's novel Eon for the umpteenth time. A central thread drawn through out that story almost asks "What is a human?" but not quite. Except for a few assumptions by select characters, the novel takes as given that humans are not necessarily what we might consider them. In other words, one need not look "human" to be human.

Key to this concept is that humans have evolved in our future. Neomorphs (humans without human form; "The neomorph— vaguely fish-shaped, limbless—regarded Olmy with a crystalline fox face and picted casual greetings, but no ID."¹) and homorophs (essentially human much like your Real Life appearance or mine; "She was a homorph with elaborations designed to heighten both sexual and leadership traits."²) are introduced with as little explanation as necessary and then treated no differently than the more pure, primitive ancestral forms. Being non-human in appearance is as natural as being human in appearance and Bear makes it clear that such is a choice in the book's future society.

What's on the inside is what counts?

The choice is yours in Second Life, too. So why do you appear to be human? Assuming that you are, of course. That many of us have a variety of avatars from animal to cartoon character to golly-knows-what is obvious. But most residents seem to stay with the current concept of a human form for most of their virtual existence despite changes for special occasions or such. With the difficulty of creating virtual clones of ourselves or the desire to make ourselves how we would like to appear in Real Life, most everyone is human.

Why? Why stick with your Real Life gender? Why are most people in Second Life caucasian?

Why, why, why? I'm not being very productive here. Probably because I don't have answers, at least not for anyone but me and that is rather iffy. Being human is what we are comfortable with, I suppose. Being caucasian or blonde or female is familiar to us. But I really doubt that these conventions make us who we are inside. Uccie is a blonde in Second Life after years of being a redhead in both worlds. She is female, like me iRL, as are most of my alts probably because that is what I know best. But she's the only one consistently caucasian for some reason.

Among my other characters, Zyx Flux is now black (sometimes reverting to her original blue) and she's a pre-teen child avatar. Oh, and she's not exactly human. As a pixy she's humanoid. Her big "sister" Zyx Resident is still blue, albeit a darker shade than with which she was created. And when she's black she's obsidian, not a Real Life human shade. My pixies are part of me – a child-like, nature-loving explorer and a confident, aloof loner that lurks and watches – that is often hard to express as Uccello.

Xandah is from India as you may have read elsewhere on this blog. Not really. I was born in Ireland and raised in America, but Xandah the character in Second Life is from India. Through her I've learned a fair bit about the culture of the world's most populous democracy.

My brother and I share log-ins for a few characters: a furry female, a robot, and an all-male caucasian Average Joe. Using these "secret" alts and my known characters I am often reminded of the quote I keep in Uccello's Profile:

"Perhaps it is impossible to wear an identity without becoming what you pretend to be." O.S. Card

When I'm not being Uccie, I don't feel much like Uccie, though I'm still me ... sort of.

Sometimes when my wife spends time with one of my non-Uccello characters she remarks that she still loves the typist regardless of the virtual form. She sees that I retain my nature and my humanity because when I'm with her I am Uccie regardless of form. With other forms that is not so clear. If you see me when I'm a German Shepherd wearing a hat and bunny slippers my I am different. No, that word is not good enough, but it will do for now.

If I could could make such changes iRL as I do iSL, would the same be true? I'd trade my current physical form to look like the elder Zyx in a heartbeat. Of course, that would simply bring up the debate about becoming the person that others see us being.³ It never ends, does it?



¹ Bear, Greg (2014-04-01). Eon (Eon, 2) (Kindle Locations 4952-4953). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.

² Bear, Greg (2014-04-01). Eon (Eon, 2) (Kindle Locations 5072-5073). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.

³ Conger, Cristen. "How accurate is our mental image of ourselves?" 05 November 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. 04 May 2014.

Xandah's Skin

Been in a mood to treat my alts a bit lately so I finally took the plunge with Xandah and upgraded her from the (at one time) free Tuty's "Lou" Chocolate skin set to the base version of Tuty's Anchal Espresso skin. L$380 for one skin isn't bad. I could have sprung about L$1500 on a multi-pack (which is nearly L$3000 on the Marketplace for some reason) but with some makeup she'll have plenty of different looks.

Xandah used to get some rude comments about her dark skin from other Indian residents (FYI: If anyone asked I admitted to being a pasty-white Irish girl iRL). I learned after some research that lighter skins were much more in favor in India and people would actually go through expensive "lightening" procedures, much like an African-American I knew when I was still in high school (she had a condition that gave her whitish spots so she chose to lighten everywhere since it was easier than getting the splotches to match her darker areas). This is not why I upgraded the skin, though. I've always loved Tuty's Anchal skin and have long wanted to wear it. This is SL, after all. Why can't I do that?

Camp Hardknock Winter 2014 Video

It is my pleasure and privilege to know many child avatar characters in Second Life. This role play community consistently demonstrates great passion for Our World and all its possibilities. Don't get me wrong. There are many very high-functioning role play groups and I've been a part of some of them, but the Kid Community (for lack of a better term) is just amazing.

How amazing? Watch this ...

Camp Hardknock - Winter 2014 from Camp Hardknock on Vimeo.
I really need to work on my kid avatar (yes, if you read the last post on this blog, I have one) and see if I can get into the next camp session.

Trent's Final Pictures

Starting with a MySL feed post from Venus Petrov, I got myself involved with a contest (see here) to see who could make the best Alt from nothing but freebies. No dollarbies, no gifting from your Main character to your noobie, no Demowear, and no out-of-the-box starter avies. Of course, since you've been reading my blog, you saw all that in my last blog post (here). With all that out of the way, I'll say I'm done. These are the final pictures for the contest and the details of each outfit, all taken on Social Island (SLurl), the second place in Second Life that new residents see. I present Trenton Aloysius Kalamack.

• Abraninmations: Male AO 4 [Pose: ao2-male-standing 2 (P2)]
• AnyPose: Expression HUD v1.0
• AJ Designs: Men's Underwear Gray
• Avi-Glam: Illusion Eyes *grey (m)
• BlakOpal: Tramontane Shirt with Collar
• BlakOpal: Tramontane Sage Vest
• Linden: Male Pirate Boots Linden: Male Pirate Pants
• Linden: Short with Bangs (Blonde) hair
• Linden: Socks (Light Grey)
• Nivaro: Adam Skin Lighttone - trailhair_clean_bald
• Ruby: Levi Brows
• TrentonKalamack Resident: Custom Shape
• TrentonKalamack Resident: Small (Gold) Earring Left

I very much like many of the items that the Lindens give us in our basic Inventories. These boots are awesome and look great with the matching pants. The Lab gets the credit, but the creators are really the folks behind Adam and Eve fashions. They created many of the nicer outfits you'll find if you dig around your Inventory.

Trent's shape is original but is based in some part on the Standard Mesh Size that many clothing creators use.

• Abraninmations: Male AO 4 [Pose: ao3-MaleStand5 (P2)] 
• AnyPose: Expression HUD v1.0 
• AJ Designs: Men's Underwear Gray 
• Avi-Glam: Illusion Eyes *grey (m) 
• Blackburns: Canvas Dark Stars Color sneakers 
• Blackburns: Computer Glasses 
• Linden: Male Logo Top (not really visible in this pic, but it provides the longer sleeves and the bit of color at the collar)
• Linden: Short with Bangs (Blonde) hair 
• Linden: Socks (Light Grey) 
• Nivaro: Adam Skin Lighttone - trailhair_clean_bald 
• P's: Keep Calm Bacon On mesh t-shirt 
• PEER: Love Sucks Jeans Ruby: Levi Brows 
• TrentonKalamack Resident: Custom Shape 
• TrentonKalamack Resident: Small (Gold) Earring Left

For those of you that have looked, Trent's hair is a women's style from the basic Inventory, but this character's look in the novels where he originated features slightly longer hair like this so it was a great find. That and it is far superior to the several free styles I came across while shopping. Male characters have so few choices of freebies in Our World. Just yesterday I found a shop that had about a dozen outfits for female characters 30 days old or newer but none for me despite being a shop for both men and women.

But it was my choice to "go male" for this so I can only blame me. But it was refreshing to try. At least I didn't have to fall back on the freebies that I've created for Bay City, the LDPW fan group, and other sources. Now I have to figure out what to do with Trent. I thought of offering his account to a friend of mine that is also a fan of the books from whence Trent sprang. We'll see.

Good luck to everyone who entered. Check out the Flickr group here to see other entrants.

The contest allowed only two pictures, but I managed to score  a few swimsuits and other pieces that I could not feature. Before terminating Trent's stay in SL I might feature a few of the better ones in future blog posts.

Who is Trenton Kalamack?

According to his Real World biography, Trenton Kalamack is a "Former Cincinnati City Councilman, philanthropist, successful businessman, and leader of the recently revealed Elf society in Our Fair City. Married to the lovely Ceridwen Merriam Dulciate (though she it too busy with our children to join Second Life)." In other words, he's a main character in Kim Harrison's Hollows novels (Web), a series of books I have enjoyed over the past few years.

He is also my newest Alt, specifically created for a challenge from Venus Petrov from her recent MySL post to create an alt using only freebies. No Demos, no Dollarbies, no out-of-the-box default avatars. Figuring that most who try the challenge are women and thus would create female alts, I thought I'd try to make a dude. Silly me. This has been near impossible, but he's almost done so I think it is safe for an "official" picture at this time. The final pictures, when posted on Flickr, will have breakdowns of what he's wearing, but here's a rough list:

Skin: From Nivaro. I tried about five freebie skins from actual creators (not the ones you find at any nude beach's freebie shop) and this was the best overall. Good free skins for men are few and far between.

Hair: From the Linden stuff library we all have in our Inventories. This is the "Short with Bangs (Blonde)" style in one of the folders for women. Since he's a classical elf I think this really suits him. I tried quite a few free styles from across the Grid but most were only marginally acceptable.

Shape: A home-grown shape since the free men's shapes that I found were too comicbook hero-ish for me. I tried to follow real-world standards and I think I did okay (see here). Despite lots of looking I didn't find any good elf ears for free, but the Linden tools were good enough. Other vitals are set up so he can wear "standard" medium mesh clothes. Don't ask about freenises and I won't lie.

Eyes: From Avi-Glam, a nice set of gray eyes with a system layer and mesh if I wished to use them. It wasn't that hard to find some very good eyes out there and I even grabbed a slit-pupil set that I rather like.

Shirt: From BlakOpal. This is a tasteful vest/shirt/cravat that my brother wears on his Steampunk alt and that I think is fitting for an old world elf, though Trent is really very modern. I figure as a long-lived creature he has probably kept some of his favorite clothes over time.

Trousers & Boots: From our Inventory's Male Pirate option. Despite grabbing a ton of free footwear from Blackburns, this combo is a great match with the BlakOpal topper.

Finding clothes was hard, too, but I have a couple casual outfits and some swimwear. Silly me, I spent as much time organizing all the finds as I did finding them. Trent's Inventory is flawlessly organized with backups properly stored and his "drawers" labeled and sorted. Elves are such neat freaks. Hopefully he'll be done and photographed before the February 1st deadline.

Avatars, Characters, & Persona

It fairly amuses me of late to see my brother's first Second Life avatar, CC Columbo, hang out in-world more often. Why? Apparently, he's 17-years old again. In real life, he is a solid 49-years old, though he tells folks he's 50 now. He's also tipping 300 pounds plus in weight, has mutton chops for facial hair this week, and a mane a wee bit longer than my own nearly shoulder-length tresses. In other words, aside from wearing glasses and having reddish hair, he doesn't look like his avatar. Behavior-wise, though, he is very much like his avatar – kind, considerate, polite, deferential, giving, loving, funny, reasonably handsome, fiercely loyal, more than a bit lazy, creative, and smart as a whip. His persona is the same in either instance, its just that he has this teenaged elf character that he's playing.

Also amusing is his "old man" character which he assumes when his alternate (alt) avatar is in-world – a cranky yet otherwise similarly behaved explorer of the Steampunk lands in Second Life; a more weathered and far more slender version of his Real Life self. Take away some hair and add in more of the scholarly, former Real Life teacher of the Social Studies and geography past with perhaps a bit more wisdom but no loss in the sense of wonder or other traits that his teenaged rendition exhibits and you have essentially the same persona, but a far different character.

A fair difference, at first blush, but compare and contrast the real to the virtual. Elven teenager or crotchety old guy, each in-world being represents with near 100 percent faithfulness the man who after the death of our father in Real Life raised me and still cares for me to this day. Each representation is easily recognizable as the Real Life man by folks that have met him in both worlds. So why the two different characters?

Well, three different characters, really. He's also a hyena furry. Or more than three. He has a bigger fascination with different avatars than I do and can often be found in the Blake Sea as a turtle, as a dinosaur roaming a desert sim, or as ... really most anything. But again, why? To have him explain it is near impossible. He simply says "its fun" and leaves it at that. Perhaps that is all it really comes down to, but probably not. Consider the teenager. His daughter (my niece, natch) passed away when she was nearly three-years old (hence the tombstone he puts in all his builds, like in the third picture) and she would have been 17 this year. I'm darned sure she would have been every bit as cool as her father, too. But are you seeing what I'm seeing with that character?

CC (which is what I call him iRL, too, as it is far faster to finger-spell than his full name) will never, ever grow up and often says he forgets he's not a teenager (maybe that's how he got along so well with all his students), but every now and then – for about a year or so now – I've caught him feeling his age. He often harks back to things like the first Moon landing, which he watched live, or playing with other kids in the space capsules that were unceremoniously parked mostly unattended on the near-by Navy base because no one thought they'd have future value (at least one he's been inside is now in the Smithsonian). He's been known to stare in wonder at our iPad and mumbling "once I had a Trash-80 that ..." And when a streak of white hair appeared all-skunky-like in his forelocks about a fortnight ago he almost danced a jig. I think he's going to enjoy being an old duffer. Our father liked to play the part when he retired and our older brothers rather relish the role, too.

So I think about my own characters, alts or otherwise, in Second Life – the pixies Zyx and Zyx Flux, the girl from India, the birds alts, the Linden Doggie and other fun avatars, along all the personas I adopt when I become them. They are all me. I am all them.

Now, who are you?

Its Zyxalutionary

The Zyx "Twins" on March 1, 2011. Zyx Flux (left) and Zyx Resident (right).

Avatars evolve — that's a given — and it is interesting to see how they do so. Zyx Flux began life as a means by which a Lucky Chair with a penchant for the letter Z could be defeated and was going to be a genderless robot. Her "gateway" was Fairy Crossings (SLurl) so her total image changed on her birthday.

Zyx Resident came about simply to reserve the first name when the whole resident naming schemes were changed. Zyx Flux had become something of a "brand" at one point through her ZyxWorx business and I felt that it would be important that no one else claim the Zyx name under the new scheme. Naturally, I made the big "sister" as similar to her little twin as possible, but with a momentary whim (also on her birthday), I made her taller and "older" as if "wee Zyxy" had grown up. Since then I've had her wardrobe, hair, and attitude (we are all characters, aren't we?) reflect these differences.

The Seminal Zyx is a playful, child-like gardener, happily exploring the world in search of new plants and wonderful landscapes. Zyx The Latter is less social, preferring the night and dark spaces though not eschewing a pixy's roots in nature as she wanders the world in search of adventure.

So more than a year has passed and these personality traits have become more ingrained, shaping each Zyx to make them even more individualized.

Zyx Flux and Caitcat at the Isle of Lesbos.

More often than not these days, Zyx Flux is a "petite" pixy, frequently shifting her basic blue for other colorful hues, but remaining bright and adorable. She can also be seen as a jewel-colored dragon or a little, tiny micro-kitten, each avatar a reflection of her friendly and perky nature. Outside the Isle of Lesbos I actually think of her as a child avie to the point that I don't peek when she's changing clothes. She's a gardner, too, as most of my landscaping purchases are directed through her. This helps with Inventory security and management as well as being a cute thing for a pixy to work at when she's in-world. On the Isle of Lesbos, Zyx Flux maintains all the grounds, but primarily the Secret Garden, a small world of fantasy flora and magical settings.

The darker sister, Zyx Resident ... simply Zyx.

As time goes by, the bigger sister has become even more mature and still darker in character, not just in skin tone. Actually, both representations of pixyhood have the same skin selections — the same shades of blue from light to nearly black — wings, eyes, and such, plus many similar items of clothing. In general, though, Zyx usually affects the deep midnight blue skin of late and sophisticated, grown-up fashions. If Zyx Flux is a precocious kid, then Zyx is the Secret Agent undercover as a runway model. Her only "job" is to be Security at the Isle of Lesbos. She doesn't do gardening, she doesn't build anything, and she doesn't socialize much, actually. Like her littler version she does explore SL, but she's not afraid of Zindra and even visits some naturist resorts on occasion. On the Isle of Lesbos, Zyx rules the Dark Forest, a small world forever at Midnight and filled with dark magics.

Underlying both of these characters is the basic pixy nature: Tricksy, energetic, nature-loving, kind to animals (Zyx Flux keeps Meeroo Meepets and Zyx has signed up for Booshies), fierce in battle, and able to exercise a deep affinity for magic. Each has an elven form (one light and one dark, as expected). They really are sisters, despite the outward differences and each is a wonderful way to express who I am in Real Life in ways that can't be done there.

On Being Zyx, Part 1

Those who frequent Lucky Chairs and other devices that give prizes in Second Life have developed strategies to gather the most prizes or to increase the odds of getting one they really want. As a very long time member of the Lucky Kitty Crew, one of SL's oldest freebies/shopping groups, I've probably tried them all, save for one: Alts. Then Zyx Flux, my cute pixy girl, came along. I was at a Lucky Chair that insisted on giving it's treasure only to those whose first name began with the letter Z. Getting frustrated at having to wait 20 minutes until it (hopefully) cycled to another letter (usually going to Z again, though) I took the time to make an Alternate Character named Zyx.

I chose the name as an expedient, simply typing part of the alphabet backwards. She could have been Zaphod or Zeta or Zimbo (thanks, Grampie!) or any of a number of names that came to mind, but I thought if I'm going to take the time I might as well make the Alt useful. The name made me think the character would eventually be a gender neutral robot, especially as I chose Flux as a surname. Then the sign-up sequence suggested that I join via a Community. I'm fond of the Steampunk regions (SLurl) so I almost picked the Caledon group, but the Fairy community intrigued me and so Zyx went swiftly through their "portal" and on to help me conquer the Lucky Chair that so vexed me.

Later that day I thought back to how nice the noobie experience was at Faery Crossing (SLurl) and took Zyx back through, more slowly. It came to mind that having a role play-specific character might be fun. After all, SL is full of people who enjoy being someone other than themselves or exploring a narrow aspect of themselves by focusing on it via role play. Despite having lived on Tamerthon (SLurl) at one time and peripherally participating in the medieval-ish community, I had not really tried this part of our world.

But elves were everywhere, I didn't really feel like Tinkerbell, and drows really don't do a thing for me. As a fan of Kim Harrison's "The Hollows" books I had one alternative left: Pixy. These four-inch tall (on average) creatures love families, battle hard, and are greatly underestimated by anyone but their fiercest rivals, the fairies.

"But," you say and I cut you off before you can finish asking "pixys and fairies are the same, right?" Yes, and no, I need to say. Here's what I have in Zyx's profile Picks:

Many silly humans think that pixys & fairies are the same creature. Both are magical woodland creatures who love gardens, are allergic to silver, & are very territorial. But pixies are smaller, usually have colorful skin (like blue or green), & don't need a wand to do their magic. Fairies are often mean, bossy, & almost never have colorful skin. I'm a pixy. Tinkerbell is a fairy (or fae). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixie

Second Life has some limitations so I've made adjustments to the Real World pixy and taken a few liberties, as well. For example, Zyx's body is as small as I can make it while keeping the proportions right, made her blue with a nice but very inexpensive skin, and started a back story that I'll relate via this blog in subsequent posts. I should confess here, though, that she is a child avie. Well, she's like over a hundred years old, but that is a kid by pixy standards (a liberty that lets her be Adult Verified while being rather child-like). This will make more sense if you look for Zyx Resident in-world ... a grown-up Zyx. More on that later, too.

Zyx Flux and Uccello Poultry, July 4, 2010, on Menagerie Isle