Now that Halloween is over, it feels like everyone is ready to skip right past Thanksgiving and jump straight into Christmas. I’m already seeing so many festive decorations and accessories popping up this weekend, and I’m not complaining. I love it. The colors are perfect. I love the classic red and green just as much as the soft pastels and icy winter blues.
Sparkle Skye is releasing the Noel Hair Wreath at theMadPea Gacha Arcana event. Even though I have mixed feelings about gachas, I do think they have their place in Second Life for people enjoy inexpensive items. Gachas are great if you don’t care what you get, and because they’re transferrable, you can gift some extras to friends. ‘Tis the season of giving, after all!
Only one picture for today’s post cos I installed the latest Second Life 2.6.3.227447 and it crashes unexpectedly all the time!! I’m also using the Silver Pink Starlight skin with this viewer, so I don’t know if it’s Second Life crashing me, or Starlight. Have you noticed that LL implemented avatar physics in the newest official viewer? YEP! It’s heeeeeeeeere!
If you purchased a free copy of my Avatar Physics from Marketplace and it doesn’t “work”, I think it’s cos SL has been resetting the Breast Bounce > Max Effect setting! For a lil bounce, set it to 25 and for max bounce, set it to 65 or higher.
Anyways, I am wearing new Maitreya Lara II hair (check out the new glossy hair texture, so amazing), Fishy Strawberry Denim dress, and SLink Cassia Sandals. <3
SLink Dynamic Hands have arrived! If you love bento mesh heads, you’ll love these dynamic (aka bento) hands. I haven’t tried the other bento hands on the grid, cos I was waiting for a release for a body that I do own, like SLink or Maitreya. The bento update is free, if you already own SLink avatar enhancement hands; go to the SLink store to get a re-delivery.
At the moment, the only poses available are the standard ones from SLink hands, but more poses are coming soon. I love that switching hand poses is now done through a HUD – so no more switching hands for different poses, there’s only one pair to wear. The movements are super smooth, and the ‘relaxed’ hands even have subtle finger movements to add more realism.
Do you wear any bento hands? What types of poses would you like to see made for them? Let me know in the comments!
What I’m Wearing:
Entwined – Melanie
Teefy – Hadley Cut Out Top (Lavender) @ Collabor88
Blueberry – Cake Leggings
If you can see this poll, you’re viewing my site on the new hosting server! I moved it to a different host, then moved it back to my current host but to a different account. Things got a lil’ complicated! Name servers took awhile to resolve for everyone, so a few people mentioned that my site was down! Sorry about that, it’s up now! 🙂
I decided not to use my old WP-Polls WordPress plugin anymore, so I lost over 50+ fabulous polls. I know how much you guys love that feature, so I am using Poll Daddy for my polls going forward, so the polls will be safe if I ever move servers again.
Flickr sent me an email recently, reminding me that my Flickr Pro subscription is up for renewal. I’ve subscribed to Flickr Pro for many years, dating back to 2007. The price was reasonable at first, at around $25 a year, then crept up to $50, now it’s $71.99! I’ve been paying for the subscription 2 years at a time, to get a slight discount. I did not know that Flickr raised the price so much, and wanted $139.99 from me for 2 years (this already includes savings). Before they could auto-renew my subscription, I went to cancel it to see if they would offer me any discounts to stay, and they did!
Perhaps I’m not the best blog to read if you want complete skin fair coverage this year. I’ve seen a lot of good, bad, and plain ugly skins over this past weekend. I’ll try to feature just a few of my “must haves” from the entire fair over this week. So far, I’ve found a few skins worth checking out!
When I did a massive inventory cleaning awhile ago, I deleted my entire Lara Skins folder. I had a couple of skins that I’ve purchased from Lara Skins but wore maybe once or twice? While the faces were always cute, the skins lacked options and were also not well made (had seams, the skin texture is grainy, etc).
I passed by Lara Skins several times before finally grabbing a demo, and after determining that I could work with this face, I gave it a chance. I thought Ava was pretty cute, and the price is attractive — $1900L fatpack of 5 skins with hair base, dark brows, a cleavage enhancer (on undershirt layer, not available on tattoo), and five additional tattoo makeups that includes smokey eyes, pink blush, and three eyeshadows. This skin has a pretty face, the body is OK (some area of the legs and overall I think it’s grainy) but I think this is an improvement for Lara Skins since the last time I checked it out.
These dark brows are OK, but I prefer lighter brows, so I wore the Lara Hurley Claire blonde eyebrows over the Ava skin. The blonde Claire brows tattoo is sold with the Claire skins pack, and not included with Ava. If you purchase an Ava skin pack (and don’t already own Claire), you might be able to ask Lara Hurley for the tattoo brows for free 🙂
Putting together my look today was easy, I wanted something Brown to go with this gorgeous new Spring necklace and Spring deer headpiece from LaGyo.
What I’m Wearing:
LaGyo – Spring necklace & earrings (gold)
LaGyo – Spring deer headpiece
Elikatira – Novel (Blonde 05)
Tiny Bird – Skinny Love (Taupe)
G-Field – Flower Pumps “Eve” Rose
In honor of Fantasy Faire, I typed in “wand” into my inventory and found this fabulous Unicorn Magic Wand from Insomnia Angel. I have no memory of ever getting this, so that means one of my friends probably gifted it to me because it was a gacha item.
And what does one wear with a wand? A crown, obviously. I pulled out Fairie Queen by Sparkle Skye, which has always been a favorite of mine. I should wear crowns like this all the time, because why not. I’m also wearing the Caroline Gown from Just Because, one of my recent favorite gown makers. The pricing is fair, it’s sold by body type, and this gown has a shiny PBR finish that really works here. You could style it futuristic or regal, the choice is yours. Back in the day, girls used to run all over the grid in full flexi ball gowns like it was casual attire. Shopping, dancing, standing around somewhere. We need to bring that back.
Now let’s talk about Fantasy Faire. I go every year, usually for Jail & Bail with Patch Linden or the Silent and Live Auction during the last few days of the event where I like to bid on Linden-sponsored items. Because of that, Fantasy Faire to me has always felt like a Linden-endorsed event.
That is why all this AI drama looks so bad. Last year, I watched a resident get bullied by Fantasy Faire designers and maybe others too for using AI to enhance photos. I’m not even sure they were an official blogger. They may have just been a regular resident who got piled on so badly they removed a lot of photos from Flickr. Fantasy Faire organizers said nothing discouraging the bullying. That was a bad look, especially for a charity event benefiting the American Cancer Society.
Previously, Fantasy Faire allowed AI use for designers in certain ways, while banning bloggers from using it. Designers could reportedly use it for marketing or decorations as long as it was not being sold. This year they changed the rules again and moved toward banning AI entirely, even for things not for sale.
Then came the DRD situation. According to DRD, they were privately given the green light by organizer Elizabeth Tinsley to use AI posters around their region build. Then later another staff member came through putting up red boxes to mark items for review or removal before opening. Things escalated, and DRD says they felt publicly shamed and harassed.
If that is true, then the problem is not AI. The problem is how this was handled. You cannot privately approve something, then publicly crack down on it later and expect no reaction. Any designer would be upset.
In my opinion, the aggressive anti-AI stance has no place in a charity event, and the selective enforcement looks even worse. AI is a tool. Whether people personally like it or hate it, using it is not against Linden Lab’s Terms of Service. Treating residents like they did something terrible over it is unnecessary.
Fantasy Faire should be about creativity, fundraising, shopping, and fun. Instead it keeps becoming drama over technology. They should release a public statement, explain what happened, and maybe apologize where needed. They also need one clear rule for everybody. Not one rule privately, another publicly, and something else depending on who you are.
They picked the wrong battle, and now it shows.
DRD Statement from their Discord server
We had something special planned for Fantasy Faire this year: our return after 10 years, with a brand-new region and a follow-up story to San Mora.
What should have been an exciting return took a very different turn in the final days. What started as a discussion around AI use escalated **far beyond that**. We were transparent from the beginning and had shown what we were doing early on, with approval to move forward, but 2 days before opening the situation shifted, and how it was handled crossed a line for us.
It escalated into repeated public shaming using hundreds of red glowing prim markers pointing out anything and everything, it reached a point of bullying.
Eventually the entire build was covered in nearly a thousand Fantasy Faire posters. **There’s nothing left of what we created.**
We literally filled the region with Orwell quotes about censorship and authoritarian control and now we’re being silenced and erased in real time. The irony is not lost on us.
This was no longer about being anti-AI or pro-AI. Everyone is entitled to their own stance on that, and we respect differing opinions. What this became about was how poorly the situation was handled.
Things have really changed in 10 years.** It no longer felt like a Faire for charity… it became a protest against AI.**
__We weren’t even allowed to set up RFL vendors to sell our build__ , meaning we were not allowed to raise money for RFL.(?)
It no longer felt like something we wanted to be part of.
We donated the sim to FF to do with it what they wish and to remove the name Reservoir Zero, because that is NOT Reservoir Zero.
**We made the decision to step away completely**. We’re not going to compromise our work or vision just to fit in.
**So here’s what we’re doing instead:**
We’re moving the full, uncensored version of Reservoir Zero to our own sim.
This summer, it will become the **full apocalyptic experience** we originally planned… a proper continuation of the story.
For now, we’ve already started setting things up there together with a few amazing merchants, and we’ll be hosting our own Relay For Life charity event and party very soon.
We’re sorry for the sudden change and any disappointment. **This wasn’t how we wanted our return after all these years to go.**
But we’re looking forward to showing you the version of Reservoir Zero that actually reflects what we built.
Thank you to everyone who reached out and had our back, it meant a lot.
