under my skin

SL, Second Life, provides the perfect getaway staycation from CL, Covid Life, though some people seem to have let it seep in here too. Not me though, and anyway, vampires, which I am, don’t get Covid. Of course, I suppose some of us vamps might have rabies, so we’re not so squeaky clean, although, I am very particular about my fangs being well-brushed and razor sharp. I like a good clean puncture wound, none of your shredding and tearing by me.

I just realised I been here over 12 years. 12 years! Actually nearly 13 now. That makes me quite elderly in SL terms, here before mesh, even before sculpties, when it was just a totally prim-world and we didn’t look quite as lifelike as we can look now. I still have my original avi too secreted away in my inventory, which is basically not much different from me now, although now I hope I am much upgraded. I know it might seem really boring to some to just remain pretty much the same even though I’ve experimented too on and off, not to mention my mermaid form. I’ve messed around with being a tree and a panther, to name just two non-human shapes, but I always come back to me. What does that say about me? That I’m boring? Or perhaps I’m lucky that from early on I been comfortable in my own ‘skin’. 

 

Maybe that’s had something to do with my longevity here, why I’ve made it this far and this long and still in one piece, relatively anyway. Emotionally it’s been a roller-coaster up until recent years as if you’re not careful SL can have a habit of getting under your skin and not always being the escape from real turmoils you thought.

I’ve definitely outlasted many of my peers who’ve either left or dumped their original avi for a new one. Also those who drop in once in an SL moon, as in rarely. Sometimes I’ll log in to find a message from some long lost name on my friends list from years ago, and presumably I must still be on theirs. They are like ghost messages really, as though they’ve been left on the answerphone from another time and hadn’t been erased. They all mostly always say a similar thing, like, “are you still playing here?”, or, “just thought I’d join SL again”, and even when I reply rarely do I ever hear from them again.

You need to be a bit schizophrenic to be here, to add another you to the many you’s out in RL. Like for me, I’m a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a student, a volunteer, a model, a photographer, a waitress and probably more, so my SL avi becomes just another facet, one always with blue hair, but one totally down to me and not at the whim of others or society.

© Anan Eebus

 

dancing queen

It’s about time I posted my first blog of 2020 here. I’ve been tardy of late and been pondering my place in SL for a while now, it having changed so much in the past few years and me having been there for so, so, so, so long, which is a long time, very long, so, so, so, so long.

Not that I still don’t enjoy it, I do, just its hold on me has loosened, lessened, not what it was. Thankfully in some ways in that once upon an SL time I was so enmeshed in it, it started spilling over in m RL which is not what it’s supposed to do as far as I’m concerned. What did leak through was mostly the worry, the angst, even some of the drama, some directed at me some just happening around me. Of course we all know and loudly proclaim in SL it should be drama-free, there’s even signs affirming that on some sims: “This is a Drama-free Zone”. A bit like “this is a Zombie-Free Zone” except without the zombies, although I’m sure some of the people I’ve met here can seem a bit brain-dead.

If you’re not careful though things can snowball, get away from you, gather unexpected momentum and before you know it: madness!

Well, fortunately for me I’ve learned through my mistakes in investing too much ‘me’, so to speak, as in my emotions and trying to spot and head-off any potential drama before it becomes drama, which can be a bit of an inworld skill in itself and not a perfect science.

I always keep myself busy though and never understand those who say, “I’m bored”. It’s strange because f you are bored then why are you even there, online, inworld, and if you are go do something else instead. Some people seem to need to be ‘entertained’ all the time, and if you look hard enough, even thuogh SL isn’t what it used to be (i.e. admittedly not as much fun or interactive) there are things to do, place to explore, amazing builds and sims to see that are just a feast for the eyes and dancing, I love dancing.

So I’ve been thinking lately about why I’m still here. One thing for sure I am loyal to my avatar, or me, which sounds strange to anyone who’s never done SL. It’s like after a while because it is like: are are you your avatar, or, is your avi you? Either way you can feel incredibly protective about her, and in my case I do, and the thought of losing her after all this time is almost unthinkable. It would be like losing a part of me, because she is in a way, my avi is me in so many ways: my beliefs, attitudes and, even though you can choose any be anyone or anything here, I have actually very closely physically modelled her on me. Not sure why although I feel most comfortable in my own skin, although my hair in RL isn’t blue, although sometimes it has been, as it has been other colours too.

I’ve never been a tree or a dragon or a zombie. I am though a vampire, and a photographer. Some things have stayed with me pretty much from the start or at least from my first year here, like the blue hair I actually had sorted by my third week. I’m still finding new things too, adventures, friends and such, though have never been into anything overly competitive.

I haven’t come to any conclusions yet except that I’m not going anywhere and staying here in SL happily as me, probably because you just never know what might happen next, and that for me, is still most exciting.

~Anan~~