Sunday, May 6, 2012

A Lovely Little Spot

There are so many beautiful places in Second Life and quite a few are for sale so that you can make your land beautiful, too. With that fact in mind I need a few dozen regions of my own and several hundred thousand $Lindens to spend. Until that happens, I'll just roam about and dream of spots such as the Sky Kyoto Garden (L$3950; SLurl) pictured below.



Heavily modified Windlight settings used, if you can't tell, but the scene is gorgeous in any light.

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.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Old Wagon Road

The Explorer Pixy Zyx Flux strikes again. She found a cute, scenic road to explore and sent her report via email early this morning. I would have posted it then, but I had to check the trip myself ... it seemed too short and I thought maybe she was trying to stiff me the cost of a full guest blog post just by visiting the two ends and fibbing about the middle. Nope. It's a really, really short trip. Here's her report:

The Old Wagon Road terminus in Sababurg. Click the billboards to teleport you to Ellingson (SLurl) and one end of Route 8A or Ogilvie (SLurl) and one end of Route 8C.
The Old Wagon Road is a short, under-developed stretch that runs from Sababurg (SLurl) to Rethymno (SLurl) and back, if you start at the other end. At the Sababurg end you'll find a regional map showing various roads, a couple billboards from feuding tourist agencies, and some horribly grey walls that will make you think that the area hasn't fully rezzed. Behind the walls is a model suburban area for Centro Tecnologico de Montsoreau, but I chose to focus on the road trip itself. Mostly I mention the walled complex because if you need to rez a vehicle for the trip you can't do it on the road but you can rez one inside the walls — though you need to get it outside the walls after. If you travel northeast along the road, there is a rez area in Rethymno (SLurl). Oddly enough, that's about halfway between the two ends of Old Wagon Road. Click the billboard there and the Map will open with an offer to teleport you to Camazotz (SLurl) and the end of Route 8B (and a rez zone), a developed highway.

The trip is a brisk four minute walk, so it was fortunate I brought along the riding tiger that I adopted at Grendel's (SLurl) to cut the time down to a fast three minute ride.

There are a few signs for a blog called Dialogo Livre (Web) though they don't seem to be related to the land that they occupy. Most of the surrounding land is dedicated to attractive Meeroo farms.
End of the road, unless you click the billboard.
There is a very good chance that this is the shortest road trip in Second Life but if I find something shorter, I'll certainly send it to Uccie to post.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Where's Uccie?

Long story, but I haven't felt like being in Second Life much the last couple days. With RL commitments looming, I might not be in-world much next week, either.

Just sitting at home in Second Life.
I've been in and out, of course, to check messages, and to help fight a certain plagiarizer that has been wholesale copying from various freebie blogs (like the Lucky Kitty Crew blog) without permission or proper attribution.

My brother and I were going to watch Star Wars tonight to celebrate Star Wars Day, but our DVD player is dead and our computer doesn't like to play DVDs ... terrible coincidence. So he's off to another virtual world much like Second Life to spend time with a girlfriend. I had to make due with this rather amazing YouTube video:

Tuesday, May 1, 2012