Sinister and Saintly

Are you fed up of me yet? I've been blogging rather a lot recently, and I should probably have been clever about it and spread them out a little more, but I haven't. There's little use crying over spilt milk - especially when you kind of tipped over the milk on purpose.

I am reading again at the Library tomorrow (Thursday). Courtesy of Simon May, we're having an Anais Nin themed day. Simon and I will be reading at noon SLT (which is 8pm here in good old Britannia), and, I believe, Jett Roxan will be reading at 8pm SLT (which is 4am here in good old Britannia by which time, sadly, I will have passed out of existence). It's possible that Jett will be reading with Simon and I, also, so, basically, the only way you'll not miss out on anything is if you turn up. See what I did there? - Good. 

Jett made another great poster. Click here - here! to see it on his flickr, where I pinched it from. Naughty Kitti.

Anais Nin is not an author I have read very much of - in truth, I hadn't read anything of her until this Tuesday, when I was asked if I would like to take part in the reading of her work. She isn't someone I knew very much about, either, though I had heard her name before, and I had a suspicion that I'd heard some pretty mean words proceeding it. When I asked about her on Facebook, I caused a little bit of a storm, although I was surprised to find that none of my English student friends (of which I have many) had anything to say about her at all.

When I started to read her work, I can't say I was massively impressed. I do think, however, that maybe I've found a way into understanding her. I'm saying nothing more for now. And, after fifty pages, I've found something I think is interesting to read aloud.

I figured we were getting a lot of Kitti-face around here, so I'd jazz it up with some more of my untidy handwriting.

In the discussion after last week's reading, I suggested that often in the case of Anne Rice, the supernatural-status of her characters serves more as an excuse to view the world in greater detail and through heightened senses. Her vampires and her werewolves have a (preter)natural kind of omnipotence, even when indisposed, that is utterly enviable. We want to be the vampire, and to be seen by the vampire. In the collection of short pieces I have read by Anais Nin, the vampire - the greater sensitivity, the greater awareness and pliancy - would appear to be opium. I like the idea of that. I think we tend to romanticise opium anyway, since it is Eastern and Other and exotic and so much, in our popular culture, to do with tasselled rugs and white skin and cat-shaped eyes. It's inseparable from lounging around in silk undergarments and conversing with higher plains and dreaming strange dreams. I doubt it would be difficult to draw out further similarities between vampires and opium.

Sadly, perhaps, there is no opium in the piece I am going to read tomorrow, but there is another kind of drug that has a very similar effect. No spoilers, though. My lips are sealed.

On that note, I shall hush, and say only that I hope to see you tomorrow. If you would like a teleport link, I should be around in-world, net connection permitting, from around 11:30am SLT (7:30pm GMT). You know my name - my username is the same. Obviously, once the reading begins, I won't be able to send you a link, but I would be more than happy to beforehand.

If you would like to see the un-tassled, un-rug'd, un-cat-shaped photos I took in SL today based on the opium-vampire idea, please click here - here! They're best viewed large.

Dead Woman Walking

Last week, I managed to get myself involved in a roleplay scene that required me to play a role I have never really played before: the bad guy. More often than not, my characters are either down-and-outs who are forced to do distasteful and hideously unpleasant things for the greater good, or mercenaries-with-a-conscience that are forced to do really distasteful and traumatically unpleasant things for what they hope is the greater good. Whilst that might seem to be a pretty narrow field, it is, actually, inexhaustible, and I enjoy the infinite possibilities for variety that come with it.

But there I was, being a baddie. And looking like a complete bitch. Sian and I put our roleplay outfits together, well, together, and it was under her influence that Kitti ended up looking like the secretary from a science fiction film noir.

Space Noir

I am not a fan of planned roleplay (in fact, it makes me want to run away very very quickly), but having a character and knowing what it is that they want is endlessly helpful. That want doesn't, necessarily, have to be something that can happen immediately, nor does it have to be something terribly specific. This was actually one of the only times for me in SL roleplay where what my character wanted was very specific: to retrieve the errant agent P, and re-format her. This was made more complicated by the presence of Norah, a friend of the runaway who, let me tell you now, packs a punch.

What is it about roleplays involving Sian during which I get punched?! This isn't on. Back in the old days, when I first started doing roleplay via MSN Messenger, my first writing partner used to smack me over the head with a crowbar every time he wanted to change the locale. This did not amuse me.

Last week's roleplay scenario was interesting not only because I was a baddie, but because that baddie character I was playing could easily be an extension of the character I have previously roleplayed with Sian in the past. Little fresh-faced Kitti was offered a job by Sian in the very first roleplay we wrote together, and though the terms of that position were never formally laid out, it was abundantly clear that it would be in the sex industry. What became clear from this roleplay was that the world I had thrust my poor little down-and-out into was one that had expectations of her pretty face and young body, and for somebody like Kitti who had nowhere else to go, it was difficult not the see the security such an institution might provide. Are you repulsed yet? If not, I'm writing it incorrectly.

Those boots were so made for stamping on hopes and dreams...:P

 So this new, harder Kitti, made cruel by those harsh crescent moons of make-up and that brash red lipstick (not to mention the ponytail - that's gotta hurt when you take the band out!), is now on the other side of the sex industry system. To avoid joining the ranks of the pleasure dolls, she has joined those who look after them and keep them in line. And that is a wonderfully dark playground of possibilities and opportunities and complexities that I am rather excited to play out, and which give more depth and scope to my character than just labelling her a "baddie". Hopefully, I'll be able to deliver a few (emotional) punches myself before this story is exhausted. If not...I've got a really, really big gun to wave around. That should do the trick.

The scariest thing about being the villain of this piece is that I am, for the moment at least, the only one. Our roleplay scene took place at Hangars Liquides, home of the Crimson Merchants who had taken the errant agent in and made of her a friend. Now they've found out what went down in the Rainbow Bar (and if you want to know, too, I'll provide a link to Sian's posting of our log at the end of this post), they've declared that Kitti is a "dead woman walking". This is hilarious, of course, but still...scary. Sooner or later, I am going to end up in a room surrounded by people pointing guns at me, and I'm going to have to do some very quick talking to get my way out of that one. Hopefully, though, I've put a good word in about the choice of venue for this little showdown, so I'll at least get to meet them on my own terms. 

Fingers crossed, anyway.

If I get punched again, however, I might just rage-quit :P.

Click here - here! - to read a neatened up version of our roleplay chat log, as posted by Sian Pearl on her blog.

A New Fetish?

This, I realise, is not a revelation. I am just slow. But look! - Kitti has proper feet! Mesh feet have been around for a while now, but I have held off picking them up because, in truth, they seemed like a lot of effort, and I wasn't sure how much I'd actually use them. But more and more, I'm wanting to throw Kitti's shoes out the window - it's not like she needs them, really - and so when I heard yesterday that the lovely lady at Glam Affair had released an applier pack that made colour-matching the feet super easy, I gave in.

For non-SL users, or those who have missed the whole mesh-feet thing, mesh feet are worn as attachments over your avatar's real system feet. System feet are strange and all your toes are smushed together like you've been wearing stilettos since you were three. They're really not good. But the mesh feet are much better, and once you have them on, you have to use a heads-up display menu to change the colour of them to match your skin tone. That's not half as easy as it sounds when you've given the colour palette from Microsoft Paint to work with (you know the kind I mean). But lots of skin makers, catching on to the trend, have begun to bring out their own HUD menus that allow you to change the feet to match their skin tones with just the push of one button.

I've made it sound much easier than I believed it was, and when I opened all of the little boxes (there were so many!), I did have a little tantrum because I could not make the applier work. Norah explained it to me, however, and...I was basically just being a plonker. Thank you, Norah.

So now I'm going to be barefoot forever. All I have to fear are lego bricks.