be fangful

 

Seems it’s been a while since my last confession, but, in my defence I am a vampire and not known for contrition nor actually confessing. Well, not in the sense where it’s supposed to come with some remorse. I mean, why would I, a vampire, feel remorseful after half-draining someone of their blood? I always leave them alive, if not a teeny bit disorientated for a while.

That’s the nature of vampires, after all we aren’t supposed to have souls, which is why they say we have no reflection, suggesting that our reflection is like a manifestation of our souls and without a soul you can’t have a reflection in mirrors, or widows, or water or highly-polished brass or silver or whatever. Basically, it would make it a nightmare putting on one’s own makeup or doing one’s own hair. The way around it of course is to get someone else to do it, not always easy when you all live in shadows and so many are too busy biting people and enjoying afterlife to the full. Yes, there is such a thing as an afterlife, see, I’m living, sort of breathing and albeit undead, proof. The breathing we do is mostly for show, we don’t actually need to breathe, being vampires and all, which is really useful for swimming.

Oh, and by the way, all that nonsense about reflections, it’s just that, nonsense. We have one that’s just as visible as yours, but we do have a trick up our sleeve. We can make it vanish when we need too. It’s a party-trick really and all the better for sneaking up on people. The soul isn’t in our reflections anyway, nor is the reflection our soul. It’s in our shadow. That’s one of the reasons why daylight is anathema to many vampires. I say many meaning not all, because some of us are elders and have worked out how to be daywalkers. Sneaky, huh! No, of course I’m not going to tell you how we do it, what do you take me for? If you knew you’d only do something silly like try and come up with a plan to prevent it. Where’s the fun in that for me?

I can do all the things, pretty much, that you can do, and more. More, because becoming a vampire opens you up and taps into parts of you that may be dormant or lain hidden for centuries, abilities and such. It does also heighten everything for us, like strength, speed and such things, but also emotions and temperament, all of which become more deeply felt and as such we spend years learning to control and live with it. Like the obvious, our hunger. It’s crazy and never-sated completely but we teach ourselves not to get too greedy and accidentally kill off our food supply, i.e. you.

There’s more to us than meets the fang, and don’t believe all the stories which are exactly what they are stories, myths, fairy tales. But, remember, some of them are true so beware, beware, there’s bound to be a vampire out there somewhere and you are likely to pass them on the street or sit at the next table in a café and never ever know. We are cunning you see.

© Anan Eebus

 

 

 

further isolation tales

Isn’t it strange how some in SL just want to mimic exactly what’s happening in RL, which I find a bit baffling as I see SL more like a bit of an escape, of a sorts, or a holiday from it.

I think the oddest thing lately is facemasks. I don’t enjoy wearing them in RL even though in some circumstances in these times of lockdown and Covid and social-distancing I have too, so why would I wear one in SL, especially as virtual worlds are pretty much the only place on the planet, apart from Antarctica, where there is no coronavirus. We should revel in that freedom to move, explore, mingle, ‘touch’, not have to socially-distant and not get locked down there too.

Although there are times in SL when one feels incredibly isolated, exploring lands where there is not a soul, or at best some mannequins or bots, but no actual ‘real’ people. It’s eerie, although it can be fascinating too traversing these shadow lands, dusty corners, forgotten swathes. Apart from ‘abandoned land’ it’s obvious someone somewhere is paying for it and yet there’s no sign of life, activity or anything. This is when it really feels dystopian, even more so than those sims that actually are meant to be and designed specially as a dystopian-theme. It’s these accidental and inadvertent ones that truly have an atmosphere and ambience of some kind of nowhere, end of the world scenario, probably because they weren’t intended to be so. They sit like a shock on the landscape, a moment frozen in the last moment anyone spent there, an intimate anonymity.

I still wish we could travel between sims without having to teleport, to actually, walk, or drive, or fly, or sail. I know this can be done with many on the mainland where they are joined together, but, there are still what feel like huge expanses of nothingness, impassable. What a shame they aren’t connected by the same sea and sky, because if they were then any new sims could appear tectonic-like kind of simulating volcanic activity, as in Iceland, throwing up new land in dramatic ways.

I suppose that’s probably a bit too much to ask of SL, who seem a bit stuck in their ways and still mostly unimaginatively focused on making money rather than making experiences. We may have funky new skins and mesh Christmas pubic hair (it’s absolutely true, the other day I found this for sale!) but the ground on which we stand still seems stuck in its ways.

I am still here though, isolated and not, still me, still looking like me, not yet turned into a dragon or a walking tree, still got blue hair as I have had from my very SL birth, pretty much, give or take a week, and here I still am, gosh, how many years later? Over 12 years! Madness!

 © Anan Eebus

more isolation tales

It’s not all fun you know, lockdown. Not that you probably think it is either, but it’s necessary, for sure, But even at times like these we still only have a habit of putting the best of ourselves online and neglecting to share the rest.

Although you most probably don’t really want to know about such things as I just washed the dishes, or vacuumed the stairs, or replaced a bulb in the bedside lamp yes I am quite handy to have around sometimes. Nor how long I been staring at trees watching leaves unfurl or the times, a lot actually, when I flop on the bed utterly fatigued at the end, or sometimes middle, of a day drinking in the lack of scenic views my ceiling offers It’s not overly interesting either knowing what comfort food I’ve just made for lunch, though I have just baked the most brilliant pudding that will last me days.

You definitely don’t want to know the times I feel utterly useless, or when I almost scream, missing the university atmosphere, even the lectures, the library, coffee shops, my life-class modelling work, which pays when I do it and not when I don’t, so a loss of income there. That kind of ‘when will it end’-feeling just sometimes overwhelms. You won’t want to know about the angst I can go through choosing which socks to wear that day nor how slowly I can eat chocolate trying, trying, trying to make it last as long as I possibly can while fighting my instinct to gobble it all down within minutes. I’m right-handed, which isn’t very interest either, see more mundane stuff, and apparently I have a pretty good left-hook, I’m told. Not an actual hook, I’m not a Peter Pan pirate.

When I get low I really get low, like lower than a worm burrowing as fast as they can to escape a hungry birds beak. Though I full-well know everyone does to different degrees for sure. Sometimes it feels like we are all being consumed by social-distancing and self-isolation, our chatter, our behaviour, the headlines, the advice, social media, all reminding us to stay away from each other. Of course, it’s all for good reasons but it doesn’t stop it feeling draining. You definitely don’t want a blow-by-blow wordy account of me crying here online just with the effort of everything.

Keeping physically busy helps, as a Covid Volunteer, for instance, and active with exercise, yoga, running, all obvious mindful stuff to do to stay sane but in the end it can’t stop the brain mulling over it all, especially when waking up in the middle of the night wondering if you spent the last few hours asleep holding your breath, all so seriously disorienting.

I always remind myself however bad a day I’m having, someone is having it worse, far worse. Sometimes that doesn’t really help to know or even tell yourself that, but it’s true for certain.

Off to make dinner now, probably a spaghetti thing, which again is probably something of totally no interest to you. Hugs, stay safe and home and keep sane, or sort of.

~x

another isolation tale

I think I’ll self-isolate. . . . . . . . .
in SL!

Seems to me a much safer place to be at the moment, but would you believe it, there are even people here exploiting the virus for personal financial gain, selling products with the word coronavirus to make money. I mean, really, how cynical. I suppose we don’t need to buy them, but really for it to be in the true spirit of things then maybe all virus-related products should be free to encourage looking out for and looking after each other.

Or maybe, horribly, this is reflecting real life and all the greediness of it. Which is sad but out of my hands. Itis as bad as people stock-piling and hoarding toilets rolls, and who would’ve thought of all things that would be fought over come the apocalypse, it wouldn’t be oil or gold or water or even land, but toilet rolls! It’s totally mind-boggling. Again, luckily here in SL we don’t actually need toilet rolls either.

Anyway, I am sort of semi-self-isolating in RL though this has impacted on my studies which are all only now entirely online and my part-time work as an artist model for life-classes, which means no extra income. Oddly enough, or maybe not so oddly, I feel perfectly fine going anywhere I like in SL and doing anything I want. Even without a mask. Not that a mask really helps at all, but I suppose it makes some people feel better, like some kind of security blanket.

Anyway, I thought a lighthouse would be the best place to do it, on a rock off the coast with only birds and seals for company, and an endless supply of coffee (I made sure of that). Hopefully it won’t be toooooooooooo long as seagulls aren’t the best conversationalists.

 © Anan Eebus ~x

isolation tales

That’s one really good thing about SL: you can’t get ill, no matter what you do, it’s all bacteria and virus-free, not even the coronavirus can get you here. Of course another kind can, a computer one, but that’s not really a virus, that’s just some coding chicanery which even though can really frustrate you can’t actually make you sick.

You can even fall from a great height here and ta-daa! No cuts, bruises, no broken bones, not even death, and we all know how inconvenient death can be. Well, we don’t actually, we can guess though that it would be mighty annoying. You simply dust yourself off and walk away, or go back up and do it all over again. If only real life was like that. Nor do we have to deal with those really piss-me-off niggles as sneezing or runny noses or wracking coughs or even itches. Mind you, I think itches can be handy, as long as they can be scratched away with some judiciously and well-targeted fingertips.

So, whoever said virtual worlds were a waste of time should try it, it’s quite handy finding somewhere no one or nothing can actually hurt you. That is, as long as you don’t take it too seriously, after all, it is supposed to be escapism, a place to put distance between you and the outside world, being kind of a pixelised extension of your inner world.

What best of all though is in SL you never ever, ever have to use the toilet: ever! While at the same time not worrying about being constipated or having diarrhoea, or exploding! Surely that’s a good thing, especially the not exploding. And, finally, for us girls, no periods. Hurrah! Among other things of course. I know there’s a good side to them as well but really, some days I think nature pulled a fast one on us.

Nevertheless, I still it’s important to keep up ones vitamin C so, even in SL, you’ll sometimes find me filling my face with grapes.

© Anan Eebus