Babbage Ramblin's & The Vernian Sea

So I have had a crazy two+ weeks and no real day off from RL work in all that time.  In fact the pics/date for this post were from the last day of freedom I had that long ago. I have not felt like writing the text to go along when I was at the computer.  All I manged this last week was to mindlessly push prims around my land, but I got it mostly built up again.  That will be the next blog.

My alt Belle got word that her home in the Porthead Tavern and Inn in Port Babbage was being razed after the Burning Barrel Races on Sunday.  It hit me kind of hard.  I have rented that upper corner room on the Port for about two years.  I also rented a shop at the tram stop for Belle's Cabinet of Curiosities, and it was the last retail outlet for that project.  I just loved my quiet place, I would sit at the desk and watch the comings and goings at the docks.

My dear friend Rho had randomly im'ed me so invited him to go exploring with me as a way to say good bye to my home away from home.  I told him he needed Steam or Victorian clothing so he found this mechanical mouse tucked away in his inventory. Absolutely perfect! We sat and looked around the docks outside the Porthead Tavern while things rezzed, Rho sniffed the air and of course found what is going on under the water.

Rhodan Fishbottoms: Mirror mirror on the wall, who has the shiniest brass of all?

It only took a few moments in the Port for Rho to discover the Vernian Sea, so we took a trip down into the tunnels.  It has been a long while since I was down there and folks have really done a great job updating it. 

Rho is giving the fox the stare down, apparently he is not too fond of domesticated foxes.  He then found the Mer escape hatch and shape-shifted.

Rhodan Fishbottoms: I'm just nibbling the algae honest!

Being a bath fan, I found the spa in the central tower and he spontaneously discovered the 'algae on the glass'.

All this lovely water demanded a mer costume shift....

Surfacing on the other side of the harbor....

Rhodan Fishbottoms: Haha, look, I'm touching another man's junk.

Once we hit the street again, Rho turned back into a mouse and I into an airship mechanic.  As it appears to be the case he is afraid of the 'cute' lil street urchins of New Babbage, and we ran into a pack of them. We slipped into an absinthe bar to escape, figuring they would not follow us in there.

Rhodan Fishbottoms chugs down a bottle of absinthe, his little combustion engine whirring a whole lot faster now.

Fun times in New Babbage.  I did not have the timing right to make the Burning Barrel Races.  I went to them last year and they were a whole lot of fun.  And of course I am never opposed to burning buildings in SL. It is just too enjoyable.  I have since found a more perfect room on the other side of the Port in The Clockwork Kraken, just hope that I will have a chance to spend some time in there before it gets razed.   Thanks again Rho for the laughs and being an awesome exploring buddy.

Blaze DeVivre: Origins

Origins of Blaze, this is not my rezzing story. This goes much deeper, back to my childhood and when I think of myself pre-adolescence.  When I see that girl, I see why I am so drawn to SL, my avi, and to a certain extent, the slife I lead. Anyone who knows the woman behind the keyboard is usually puzzled by my second life, so I only share it with those closest to me. Everyone knows that I am a crafty artsy down to earth kind of feminist who does not care too much for artifice and rarely wears make up.  What they may know, but may have not put it together is that I was deep into girly things as a youngster and have found that part of me again in a wholly different medium.

Honestly this is hard to admit, there is a lot of pressure to hate the Barbie Empire, and with good solid reasons.  But I loved my Barbie dolls.  I did not hack them up, I treated them with reverence.  I made them clothes, I braided their hair.  I did not have a lot for them, my family was not poor, but we did not have a lot of extras and my mom did not believe in "spoiling" kids.  I did not have a Dream House, and I was saddened by that since my friends did.  In my adulthood, I realize I had it better.  I had 3 rooms of blow-up furniture, the bathroom, an above ground pool, the horse "Midnight", and the red VW camper van.  I would build her house anywhere I wanted, in the foyer was my fave, one story and lots of room to move.   

And then one Christmas came Darcy. I asked for her, I wanted that doll so bad, she was extra glamorous, mature, she was a fashion model after all.  She could also move more than Barbie.  Surely I was taken in by  Saturday morning marketing, we are all vulnerable to that, especially at that age.  I rarely got what I asked for on my Christmas list, but that is no fault of my folks so much as my expensive tastes and voracious appetite for consumer goods at that age.  But I got a Darcy!

I was elated! Then the reality set in...none of the Barbie clothes fit her, she was too tall for the VW van, she was too leggy to ride Midnight.  She took up the whole pool practically.  It was all awkward for her to be in Barbie's world.  And to top it off she had a "birth" defect, two left hands, for which I was teased.  But did that stop me? Hell no! She did what she wanted and I just made more clothes for her.  She totally stole Ken from that stiff and boring Barbie. So what if half her torso was out the sunroof of the van, she could still drive because her feet reached the pedals.  Darcy was glitz and glam, and was going to take the runway by storm in the fashions I designed.  

That is Blaze, too tall by most standards, clothes do not fit right, poses hate the larger frame, other avis have adjusted their height in her presence, couples anims really expect a smaller female, and that can get awkward more often that not.  But do I care? Hell no! Blaze will continue to be the avi that I have come to identify with. And when I thought back to my Darcy, I realized how Blaze is partially a manifestation of an old favorite.

When I was not deep into playing with dolls, I had a whole assortment of fashion designing toys.  For many years when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say a fashion designer in New York.  So beyond Darcy, little Blaze loved these toys the best...

Obviously those girlhood dreams never really manifested in RL, aside from some pieces in a couple of DIY fashion shows a few years back and a few How-To Zines published as a fundraiser for my roller derby team.  I do refashion a lot of my clothes that I wear on a regular basis, but nothing too elaborate.  The New York designer dreams faded when I met New Wave, punk rock, anarchism and teen angst. When people asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up then, I said I wanted to be a bag lady on the streets of New York, just to get them off my back.  But what I found in SL is a way to bring back those parts of myself to create and play, in a ways that recaptures the best parts of that little girl.

My outfit was a quick throw together from my inventory, mostly past group gifts.  I could spend a lot of time making a better one, but I think this adequately captured my Darcy's essence (I even think I made or bought a shirt dress that is similar.  Oh and except for the two left hands thing, that I could do, but I wanted to finish this post. For the record, I did ask/beg for the brunette Darcy, my mom got the blonde one, but my bestie let me play with hers when we hung out.

Dress: Purple Moon: Brandy Dress in Pink/Black

Hair: Analog Dog: pop scotch - light blondes

Shoes: Goody2Shoes: Hollywood Flip BLACK

Jewelry: Chop Zuey: Winter Berries set

Chasing My Tail

So this time of year always hits me hard. It is an intense gear shift at work that grinds me harder every year. Also big changes for other aspects of real life. It is intense in Blazeville right now and it is going to be awesome on the other side. Getting there is going to be tough going and requiring a steady pace.  I am thankful for my second life as an escape, now more than ever.  

When I first logged in this evening I thought I wanted to dance it off.  And then I thought I could start on my sim rebuild. Then I realized I needed something even more peaceful relaxed. For some strange reason, I find it most comforting to be self-indulgent and distracted, in this case it means; dress up, take snappies, and blather. 

So I put on some recent acquisitions; my new centauress and favorite gown from the last round of C88. All the Greek-ness of these looks called for a trip to an old fave sim MIC Imaginarium.  Half of the sim regularly hosts art builds though the last two times I was there, there was only ocean, but I was there for the temple and woodlands anyway.  

A little play with pixels and some time with words is helping gain peace.  Everyday I just have to hack off a reasonable sized chunk of the to-do list, connect with friends in both worlds, and continue to make time for creativity.  All things will fall in to place.

Lost Island & Found Twin

Happy Birthday to me and my BDay twin!  I have never known anyone who shared my birthday let alone who lives so far away.  But through the lack of privacy granted through social media I learned that my favorite Flemish FishMan shared my favorite day of the year (though many years apart and I am not saying who is older).  So of course that meant we had to celebrate!

Rho had showed me his centaur avi a while back and I showed him my old one, it is cute but does not move, just a mesh attachment.  He laughed at me for being short and I envied him for having such a fabulous horsey self.  So when it came time for a birthday splurge I went to the KOT stables and picked up one of my own.  I may have also bought a horse to ride as well. *grins* (That will be a future blog post.)

So for lack of a real plan for our adventure, I picked a place off the Destination Guide that looked promising and it was simply stunning! Lost Island, a lush sim, that made me stop in my tracks many times and just enjoy.  It has the drawback of being a landing point for noobs fresh out of the pixellated LL womb, but they really are harmless still at that age.

 Forest, waterfalls, and miles of caves, but no pics of them since we were galloping through them at a good pace.

Absolutely fell in love with this gorgeous dwelling on the cliff, modern but organic, it stood out from the landscape but complimented it at the same time.

Enormous Shower! We stood in it for scale.  I guess one does not have to conserve water in a jungle.

A treehouse with fabulous curtains that moved as you walk through...we may have spent a half hour walking back and forth through the curtains, because it was fun.  I could hear the gears turning in his scripter's brain, lots of quiet, and then he says, "I think I can do better." He will, I am sure.

Of course there is rain in a jungle, and such lovely rain too.  All in all a fun afternoon horsing around, I am sure we will hang again next year on the same day.

Thanks Rho for making me laugh, and post pics of you.  You are best horsey!

Blazin' Safari

Sometimes when things are most pressing and RL needs uninstalled. I find happiness or at least a little respite in doing something completely unrelated to projects I need to finish, or start. I am sure no one else understands this. *grins*  Being productively distracted helps.  So here are the fruits of my side-tracking.

Since I got up rather early, I took a trip to Collabor88, which is much less laggier in the off hours. This month they are doing a safari theme.  I was not too into it, until I saw the components that compose this outfit, the shirt and shorts from tres Blah.

The hat and hair are from AGRACE and is at The Hair Fair.  I absolutely had to get it since the hat is pretty much the same one I wore all last week at The Oregon Country Fair.  The only difference is that I have a button in the headband that reads, "What happens over the rainbow, stays over the rainbow." *more grinning*

This lovely sim I found by just searching "Africa," The Drakensberg Mountains, it is a lovely nature sim, with horse trails and the like. I will return when I have more time, and a horse to ride. The elephant herd "called" me over the moment I spotted them upon landing of course. Mid-shoot I remembered a very important detail for tonight's show that I had to deal with still.  Good times, distraction complete, now back to a crazy work day in SL.

Shirt - -tres Blah- Khaki Blouse (C88)
Shorts - tres Blah- Khaki Shorts (C88)
Shoes - Pure Poison - Giulia Sandals (C88)
Skin - [HUSH] - Addison
Jewelry - *League* Kandula Necklace and Wanderer bracelets and earrings

This Is A Mer's World

Today's blatherings are from my home.  The MerRetreat was recently completed with some help from a new fishy friend of mine and I want to share, before it gets tore down and rebuilt.  Ahhh...the muses are so finicky sometimes.  And since I finished it, I decided to sink most of my land, since landscaping it was bugging me, now we can be in actual water, not at 3000m in the sky. 

Since the beginning of my slife I have wanted to explore my fishy side. My merpast is something I will delve into some other time.  For now, just know that I am a landed water creature.  My second avi was supposed to be the Mer and to a great extent she still is. She built this Mer Retreat on our sim and has lots of fishy goodness to her.  (She will make an appearance in a later post, after the rebuild.)  She also built the tropical paradise above this that will be uncovered in a sunbaked brain & bikini post.

But for now, I am hanging with Rhodan Fishbottoms, a fine trout indeed.  I told him that I was setting up my MerRetreat and needed inspiration.  He took me on a tour of some fabulous waters that I will share in a Part 2.  This may have been his first modeling gig in all his SL years, which are many many more than mine, but he did good.  Certainly this was my first time posing another actual person in my pix, good thing he had no previous experience, so my amateurishness would not be so evident.  I just dragged him around by the poseball while he ate salmon and asparagus. Win-win!

Plankton snack time! Aside from the Kraken couch we are sitting on and the plants all around, all the decor in this retreat was from various mer and fantasy hunts and Aly's Freebies.  The couch was from the World Goth Fair, I love it so much I keep moving it to the places I am hanging out.  I know that there is more stuff hiding in our inventories that will make it out for the next build.  In fact Belle is going to be working on some mer furniture and such with her next batch of goods.  (Photobomb compliments of my alt Ender, who just had to check out Rho.)   

And as it happens to all men who encounter the Maneater Blaze, they learn that I do not survive on plankton.  At least Rho made it out with half a torso, the last men did not fair quite so well.  It was his ensemble inspired this shoot.  I knew I met a good friend when in response to me showing my shark self, he countered it without a pause. Touche!

Fun times at home!  Big thanks to Rho for sitting and grinning.  I am not done with my merself by any means, the oceans are vast and need more exploring.


Styling notes later...

Blazin' Babbage

Brunel Tram Stop - Babbage Canals

Let's play pretend...
...let us pretend this is our second date.  That the first was lovely and we gave it another shot.  Well, at least pretend it is the second post of a new blog.  Why? Well if you are asking that, you have never felt the awesome stopping power of The First Post.

While we are at it, let us also retro date this post to the time it should have been done done....

8 May 2014

It was a lovely soot filled afternoon on the sims of New Babbage.  I had made this outfit back in December, while working on my costume for Le Cirque de Nuit, and was waiting for a nice relaxing time to take it out on the town...so, erm...flash-forward to May.

Twas the day after my rez day and I was still buzzing from my 3500m "naked skydive with an umbrella" on my new home sim and loving SL a little more than usual. A tram ride and some exploring was the perfect capstone.  New Babbage was the second sim I "intentionally" went to after joining SL and learning how to move about outside a hub. Armada Breakaway was the first, since P (Pirate) comes before S in the destination guide.  When I saw there was a whole category for Steampunk, and there were many sims dedicated to it, I knew I was hooked on this virtual world and would really work hard to learn it.

Sunken Gardens - Wheatstone Waterways

Before we go too much further into our second date/post I have to make something clear: I will probably always be a raw shot SL girl.  I am obviously not trained in the finer points of photography either, especially any points that involve numbers. All of this is playing around...savoring and sharing space, time, and experience with some selfies.  Generally I learn as I go, and that is sloooow going.  I thought I would get around to touching these pics a little with gimp or something, but you know, I could sit on them a year waiting to get around to that.  Soon I will actually apply myself to getting better at raw shots, playing with sliders and buttons has not been inspiring for me just yet.  I love having fancy pix made, but since I do not have the skills to do it myself I will bow to the artists and leave it to the pros.  If you still want to see me after knowing this, I am glad.  We are going to have fun, so let's carry on...

AP&E - Clockhaven Power Station

New Babbage is absolutely one of my top 5 favorite places in all SL.  I have maintained a residence on one of the sims for years, just a tiny room, with a smattering of furniture.  A port in the soot, if you will, the place I go to when lag does not matter and my lungs feel too healthy.  I love to watch the cleverness, creation, and destruction (which usually involves explosives) in this bustling community.  So much wonder, imagination and Victorian "practicality" all in one place.

   

High above Clockhaven, where the soot is nice and thick I feel it.  I am definitely an outsider.  I have not joined in any civic activities or role play, I just lurk and love.  I even bought (and read) the rl paperback version of the book, Tales of New Babbage.  I guess I am really just a fan, supporting with a few lindens and a lot of appreciation. 

While I was up here I was pondering the fact that have been a fan of steampunk for a long time, but I lack the RL means and motivation to do a lot with it in the big world.  Beyond being a train junkie and reading, watching and listening to the canon of books, movies, and music, I do hold that coal powered feeling in my heart. I do not get much other steam powered goodness. For me though, that is enough.

Clank Trader Cog Factory - Clockhaven

So the "blathering...again" part of this blog title.  I kept blogs for my first years in SL, it was a quasi-fictional attempt to develop characters of my alts, to let them blossom as their own individual personalities, with the intention that they would later come together in some sort of story form.  Travelogues, rambles and blatherings, never really read by anyone else. But those stopped once I joined Guerilla Burlesque, just no time to do it all, and really it was a fail as far as the character development part, though not a fail overall.  

Through those blog fails, I learned a lot about my self and my motivations in SL.  So I have dropped all the fictional pieces and will just return to traveling, styling, and making rambling posts.  Because that is me, and they always say; start where you are at, write what you know, etc. etc.

  

At the factory, I met a nice man, but damn, if I could get him to notice me! Maybe because I talked his ear to rust? Most posts will not be this long, but I had too much fun here and could not edit myself anymore.

Port Babbage

Back home again, to my little hovel on The Port. This outlet will be a place for times when a facebook post or photo album just cannot contain my adventures or my compulsive need to go on a bit.  It will be raw shots, hack writing, and ramblings, just like old times, but I will add some style notes and slurls. This is big step for me since I really hate taking notes. I do not even take good notes on my acts, and when I drag them out for a rerun I usually do not know what the hell I am doing.  Since this may have a chance of being read, unlike my last blogging attempts, the creators deserve credit.

Thanks for pretending with me. The first post that I was stuck on for 3 weeks...glad we got it out of the way and went right to the second one. We even got to do some reminiscing about our lovely first date/post that set the tone of what this blog is and is not.  The third post, well, since it is like our third date, who knows what will happen! *a wink & sly grin*  

What I am wearing...

• Outfit: A smashup of Bare Rose - "Steam Ball C2" and Rosal "STEAM" corsets, gloves and ballet boots 
• Skin: Mystic Canvas - Dredna
• Face Tattoo: IrUrU - Eye Script
• Hair: Pocket Mirrors - Myrtle Updo - Majestic
• Eyes: IKON Sunrise - Dark Verdigris