A Date in Space

Ganymede Mojito - with extra sparkles. It was pink and tasted like strawberries. There's probably a metaphor in there*.

Last night, I received a message from sian asking if I wanted a quickie down at the Necronom. No, really, she did - she just didn't mean like that. Get you brain out of the gutter.

Sup, space girl

It was in the bar at Necronom VI that I first met sian. She offered to dance for me, and I pointed out in response, painfully naively, that I was straight. Quite rightly, she replied with "so?", and so our weirdly uncomfortable roleplay relationship began. sian said afterwards that she knew she could push it like that with me because I'd made it blindingly obvious that I wasn't going invite or enjoy any kind of sexual relationship with her. That wasn't what I wanted. She probably phrased it better than that. 

It's been a long time since I have roleplayed in the Necronom bar, and sian's invitation to go back there last night - on a date - was a strangely sweet blast from the past.

We stayed for about an hour, re-writing and re-working the little scene that began it all. It didn't play out exactly the same way it had before, but that's what made it interesting. We weren't there to write something groundbreaking, but the short scene we did create was full of juicy tidbits for our wider role-play story.

We aren't the only ones who have grown up since then - SL has changed, too. Our catsuits were effectively sprayed-on back then, and sian's baldness seemed logical to me because my hair used to fight with my body and stick through my shoulder and do all kinds of unlikely (and unfun) things. Last night, sian was wearing a little anime/sci-fi number that would have been a nightmare to make fit properly were it not made of mesh, and whilst Kitti's leggings were old spray-on favourites, her hair, shirt, hands, boots, necklace, eyelashes and eyes were all made out of new-fangled mesh.

sian

sian 's hips move at identical, precise angles, each step perfectly modulated. She stops, pulls her skirt down, twice, each slight movement exactly as before. "Would you like me to dance for you?"

Kitti flushed pink from the thick, smudged paint of her eyeliner down to the wide band around her throat. "N-no, thank you" she stammered. 

sian moved close, her lithe physicality as precise as her language. "I can supply companionship at all levels, from basic phatic conversation up to and including physical congress."

"Physical what?" 

sian 's tone was matter of fact. She could have been talking about accounts. "Sex." 

Kitti suddenly felt stupid, as well as uncomfortable. "Really," she said, "That's very, eh, kind. but I er." She had no idea what to say. Her discomfort was acute. She'd never had sex, and had never dreamed of having it with a woman. Or a cyborg.

Kitti

I've written quite extensively here already about the role of discomfort in role-playing, and sian possesses a seemingly innate ability to make my characters desperately uncomfortable - across the board. Her comfort-stomping-out boots crumble genre fences. I think it's about time she got a taste of her own medicine. I have fired a warning shot. Watch this space, creepy space girl. I'm coming for you. 

If you'd like to visit Necronom VI, click here - here! That link will take you to a little control-type room, and in front of you will be a map that you can click on to take you to specific places. We were in the shuttle bar.

*I googled "sexual connotations of strawberries" and wish I hadn't, although the results I got genuinely don't fit our little rp scenario at all. A humorous dead-end with that one.

It was like that when I got here

Click here! to see this full-size on Flickr

It was like that when I got here, I swear it. There were no signs of forced entry, but the CCTV camera has been spray-painted black, too, so I doubt you'll get anything off there. Why would anybody want to do that to the BaC® Conflict Management Centre™, sian's new roleplay hangout? I simply cannot imagine. I'm not paid to imagine, right? Right. Anyway.

Click here to read about BaC on sian's blog - here! or click here to go straight to the hangout - here! Or do both. I'm not here to tell you want to do.

Resolution

We'd all heard about them before, of course, but they always seemed to be so far away. There were rumours and rumblings, but nothing that seemed close, pressing. Nothing that seemed...real. It didn't happen to anybody we knew and we ignored the warnings on the television because we stopped believing it told us anything close to the truth years ago. But we were fools, fools not to believe it, and when it came for us, we weren't prepared and all we could do was run, as fast and as far away as we could. We didn't look back until we reached the water - the edge of everything, or so we believed - and there it was, rolling out along the horizon like smoke but with the thick, heavy consistency of tar. Someone somewhere, God Allah Shiva Whoever, had finally decided that we had been a bad idea after all and pushed the button and so begun the system to refresh, reset, renew. Begin again begin again begin again. We were being wiped out. 

I wondered what it would be like to be crushed beneath the restart; at first to feel the coldness of it, the coldness of the fabled grave none of us had yet known but would know now, and then the stickiness, the weight, the collapse. It had been preached that this life, this world, this, our bodies, the air we breathe, wasn't real and never had been, but that storm looked real enough to me. I vowed I would never look back again - and I went forward into the water. Onwards.

That, ladies and gentlemen, was a spur-of-the-moment dramatisation of a rolling restart. I was minding my own business in my new skybox when my screen began to shake and I got the warning that my region would be restarting and Kitti would be logged out if I didn't move regions (like a group of sims). Not knowing exactly which regions were involved in the restart and where the borders for such things lie, I ran to the most remote place I could see in my landmark list and ended up in the sea. Cue drama.

It was more difficult than you can imagine not to make a "Rolling in the Deep" reference. 

The Golden Thread

Hey - I'm back from the United States! After two severe winter weather warnings, rain that freezes upon impact with the ground, a metric fuck-ton of orange de-icer, and an aeroplane hit by lightning as it came into land in North Carolina, I somehow managed to make it back to England (four hours later than I was supposed to, but still). 

Just in time for this little no-longer-secret event at which I am appearing:

TONIGHT - see on Miamai's flickr stream here - here!

Because of my holiday, sian and I were unable to make the performance we might originally have wanted to, but what we have created instead is, I think, definitely worth experiencing (that's as close to blowing my own trumpet as I am going to get). It is only the third short story I have ever finished writing, and sian and I have worked on it (and worked on it) to make sure it's the best it can be. sian will be performing it live in voice - and she reads wonderfully. This is so much more than a (fantastic) fashion show. We really hope to see you there.

If my writing today isn't fantastic, blame jetlag. I lost six hours of life in turbulence somewhere over the Atlantic. It seems bizarrely appropriate to have stepped from the snowy forests of North-West Arkansas into the darkly beautifully forests of the Miamai show venue. You're really in for a treat.

Without further ado - the press release:

_________________________________________

MIAMAI

BlackLabel

...            The Golden Thread        ....

An Epiphany in Four Parts

The creatives of MIAMAI have gathered together for the fourth year of their triumphant Black Label series of fashion events. Join us as the year closes and wind your way into the forests of the night. Come, follow the Golden Thread on a journey that will take you to the heart of life and love.

______________________________________________

December 7th, 2013

   1st public show:  1.15 pm - 2.15 pm SLT

   2nd public show:  2.30 pm - 3.30 pm SLT

Location: SLURL

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Every attendant will be required to wear a mandatory outfit that will be provided upon reaching the event location.

Due to the nature of the event, the spots on the sim for each show are very limited ; however, we are providing different means to follow the show for those who can't get in:

. Livestream, to follow the event starting from 12pm SLT
. Live blogging on Plurk:
  http://www.plurk.com/MiamaiSL
. Live blogging on Facebook:
  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Miamai/309836555791103
After the event, the venue will be open to the visitors for a month.

______________________________________________

With the participation of:
  . Aesthetica
  . A:S:S
  . ContraptioN
  . Metatheodora
  . PXL Creations
  . Slouch Poses
  . Wasabi Pills

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Performers:
  . The Basilique Performing Arts Company
  . sian pearl + Kitti Wytchwood
  . Spirit Light Dance Company
  . ChangHigh Trinity Sisters

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Visual Artists:
"The Golden Thread":
  Aemeth Lysette
  Clem Velinov
  Ganymede Galaxy
 
"Anima"
  Dita Actor  
  Kynne Llewellyn
"A Story Of Details"
  Absinthe
  Anna Sapphire
  Calima Dufaux
  Carthalis Rossini
  Chii Kimagawa
  Dagmar Haiku
  Eve kazan
  Grazia Horwitz
  Harper Beresford
  Katime Vacano
  Lada Leeroy
  Nadja Baxter
  Petra Messioptra
  Saleena Hax
  Shae Sixpence
  Shortcake Sugarplum
  Tania Tebaldi
Machinima: Forren Ashford, Thalia Heckroth
 

__________________________________________________________

 
Sponsors:
VVON VOICIC™ ; Production House, Studio, Copy, Exhibit est. 2013
The Magazine
DavidThomas Scorbal Scripts

__________________________________________________________

Credits:
CONCEPT: Monica Outlander
DEVELOPMENT AND BUILDING: Faust Steamer, Pill Kanto
BLACKLABEL MODELS: Amita Yorcliffe, Anna Sapphire, AnnaG Pfeffer, Caoimhe Lionheart, Carley Benazzi, Dragonia DeCuir, Tania Tebaldi, Zaara123
BLACKLABEL MANAGEMENT: Grazia Horwitz, LaurelRose Anthony,Magenta DeVinna, Shae Sixpence, Shiloh Fouroux, Winter Jefferson 

Blue (a kind of creative response)

Above Hangars Liquides South

"You know what coming to the city taught me?" 

She crushed the cigarette she hadn't been smoking into the windowsill. The paper tore, and the unburned tobacco spilled on to the floor. Beyond the window, the city stretched as far as the naked eye could see, but, somehow, the warmth of all those bright lights twinkling in almost every window could not reach us here. The ice blue of her eyes and the hard line of her mouth kept it at bay, perhaps, and I wondered if, were I to reach out and wipe her silver lipstick where it had smudged, I would find her skin cold. I shivered. 

She didn't notice.

"It taught me just how little a fuck people really give. I mean, really. They're all bastard sons of bitches and they're all the fucking same."

If she hadn't sounded so serious, I might have laughed. I didn't think she was the type of woman that would take too kindly to being laughed at, though, and I didn't want to offend her. I wanted to know what silver lipstick tasted like. 

"Do you hate us all so much?" I asked instead.

She sighed heavily. "I wouldn't be helping you if I did. Trying to help you, anyway."