Madelyn and Mirsha: Coming to a Sim Near You

I have a mate in-world named Mirsha. She's just one of those people I clicked with almost instantly, and now we are prone to having very silly and very funny chats in the middle of masses of people who are simply trying to have a good time. For Christmas, I thought I'd do the copy-and-paste trick and give you perhaps a gift of a giggle or two.

This took place when I visited her at the place she works, which naturally enough, is all about dancing and sex.

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Mirsha Loudwater: what'cha looking at?
Madelyn Writer: taking a short tour of the upstairs with my camera
Mirsha Loudwater: ooh, I see
Madelyn Writer: oh good, you have a 'fisting' option on Bed One.
Madelyn Writer: nothing i like more than five fingers up my cooch.
Mirsha Loudwater: I've never been into that...
Madelyn Writer: i prefer footing. same principle. you just have a bloke bury his leg up to the knee.
Mirsha Loudwater laughs
Madelyn Writer: if you get a small enough bloke, you can have a reverse birth
Mirsha Loudwater: tried that once... Took a while and one of his friends to get him out again
Madelyn Writer: oh dear. did they have to use a cro bar?
Mirsha Loudwater: no, they attached hooks and stretched so he could climb back out.
Madelyn Writer: good. at least it wasn't painful.
Mirsha Loudwater: now, if only he hadn't been a reporter, I wouldn't have to hear from it
Madelyn Writer: reporters are lousy lovers. i had this one fellow who would NOT put down his microphone. "this is chuck stevers, live from Madelyn's bed" etc.
Mirsha Loudwater: better than weathermen. oh, I hate weathermen
Mirsha Loudwater: the term 'looks like it's going to be wet and slippery' gets real old, real quick
Mirsha Loudwater: then he started bitching about dry seasons. i'll never sleep with my dad's friends again.
Madelyn Writer: i got lucky. i had one once and he went on about a high pressure zone moving in from the south. of course, he was 50/50 when it came to predicting.
Mirsha Loudwater: oh, I had this traffic reporter once, he ended up blocking both exits
Madelyn Writer: better than having a restaurant critic, though. those fellows are never happy. kept stopping to write notes.
Madelyn Writer: kept talking about ambiance. jeez. talk about pressure.
Mirsha Loudwater: you should try a wine taster
Mirsha Loudwater: 'this one has a big upper body, but weak legs and a shallow lower body'
Madelyn Writer: i did once, i think. showed up, had a sip, left. i was put off.
Madelyn Writer: that's why i'm off your dad's friends, too.
Mirsha Loudwater: dad himself is pretty good, though...
Madelyn Writer: i'll say
Mirsha Loudwater: he's unemployed, so he can focus, at least...
Madelyn Writer: he is? he told me i gave him a good job.


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SL / RL Parallel

Whether used as escapism or exploration, Second Life proves that old addage from that terrible movie 'The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai': wherever you go, there you are.

While continuing my Never-Ending Aimless Tour, in which I plonk a random word in SL's search engine and go wherever it tells me, I met a nice guy. Good attention to his clothes and appearance (even the eyes appeared to be the result of shopping, not stumbling a box of free eyes in the middle of a cornfield). An astute sense of humour - including fairly enjoyable bad-joke exchanges regarding angles (involving "obtuse questions" and "acute avatar" - groannn) and actuarials being the only people on Earth who could make accounting interesting to the regular world. A willingness to be lured away from a couple of stumbling noobs for a short dance with no chance of it going further than that.

And my first thought, as it is in RL, is: OK, what's wrong with this guy?

UPDATE -- I later found this fellow in real life - the hows and whys I will not go into. My journalistic instinct suggested I keep the information to myself. However, my personal instinct won out and I contacted him and told him how I found him, etc. Because he has a public position with authority, I advised him to get a different avatar if he wanted to pursue personal relationships (as he had intimated). He was a bit shocked by this revelation, and I admit to being a little concerned over how he would handle it. By the end of our chat, he appeared willing to consider a second avatar - one that would have no contact with his main one. I felt dead awful for scaring him like that, but better me than an associate of his.

Dear Members of BLOODLINE

Dear members of BLOODLINE:

Like a virtual version of HIV, you have entered and spread through Second Life. Like HIV, you contanimate and offer nothing in return. Like HIV, much of your behaviour can be linked to assholes. Like HIV, life is better without you.

When I show up at a ballroom, I don't want to see a dropdown menu asking if you can bite me. When I go shopping, I don't want to see a dropdown menu asking if you can bite me. If I'm at a coffee shop with mates, I don't want to see a dropdown menu asking if you can bite me. You get the idea, yeh?

And when I get a dropdown and you ask me if you can bite me and I say, "Sure! Can I shit in your mouth?", don't cop an attitude. It's you invading my space and interrupting my time that inspired my retort. I am just as short if someone would ask me for my shoes or ask if they can put a tattoo on me for their own benefit (and, in effect, you do, as the only thing a victim can get is a crappy looking pair of holes to wear on one's neck).

Whatever you get from going around "on the hunt", as you lamely put it, I suspect it's only marginally more than what your victims get. You "own" 500 souls? Whoopie mother fucking doo, mate.

And if you accuse me of "being young", as Whatevah Antfarm did, and your boyfriend decides to orbit me when I refuse to be bitten, as Wandering Antfarm did, you transcend stupid and go directly to retarded. You get reported, fucktards. Now you'll have something else to tally up that's meaningless.

In short, please, please, for the love of God, fuck yourselves.

Best,

Madelyn

Second Life: The Global Community

One of the most spectacular things about Second Life is being able to meet and interact with people from all over the world. It is only here that you can effectively meet a 64-year-old retired police officer from Brussels or a 17-year-old woman from Quebec within a few virtual feet of each other. Or, if you're amazingly lucky like me...

[5:11] Nicolas Cerise: hi
[5:11] Madelyn Writer: hey nic
[5:11] Nicolas Cerise: how are you?
[5:12] Madelyn Writer: not bad, yeh. how's your travels today?
[5:12] Nicolas Cerise: good:)
[5:13] Nicolas Cerise: i look at exciting places:)
[5:13] Nicolas Cerise: and you?
[5:13] Madelyn Writer: i look at whatever can interest me
[5:14] Nicolas Cerise: let me show better place at this?
[5:14] Madelyn Writer: wow. i have no idea what that means.
[5:14] Madelyn Writer: :)
[5:15] Nicolas Cerise: :)
[5:15] Nicolas Cerise: let me show it?
[5:15] Madelyn Writer: i'm sorry? show what?
[5:16] Nicolas Cerise: you would eat better place
[5:16] Nicolas Cerise: nice, exciting
[5:16] Madelyn Writer: eat better place?
[5:16] Madelyn Writer: i'm sorry. i am not understanding you very well.
[5:17] Nicolas Cerise: sorry
[5:17] Madelyn Writer: no worries. i think i'll be moving on now.
[5:17] Nicolas Cerise: I am not very good angolbol yet
[5:18] Nicolas Cerise: where moving on?
[5:19] Madelyn Writer: i have no idea

Yes, if you're lucky like me, your chance conversations tend to look like outtakes from the movie, "Borat."

Brutal E-Youth

I do confess I often stoop to the disdain for newbies that baffled me when I was new.



In the old days of my newbiedom, when guilty of little more than not knowing how to walk [or perhaps having expertise in running just into the side of a doorway], I would flounder just long enough to incur the wrath of someone who had been in the game for a long time - especially if there was a group around to impress. I would take all the insults, then slink off to derisive laughter and a chorus of insulting wav files.



"What are they being so uptight about?" I would think to myself, but I kept otherwise silent. Standing face to face with a Borg-looking dominatrix with wings, while I had little remarkable about myself than a jerky walk that made me look like I had early-stage Parkinson's, did not suggest there would be a good ending to any fight. Plus, I had the foresight to realize there was much I did not know - and as I discovered guns, orbiters, distorters and the like, I realized I was correct - so to engage with a person of experience could be up the ante on the Humiliate-o-meter.

But to flash forward, I do, as I said, occaisionally snipe at newbies in the same manner (sans the nasty wav files, which I've never gotten into). Perhaps this is just a reflection of my school days (and probably yours), where the upperclassmen always took the piss over a juniorclassman and his ignorance of the way things were. Or a reflection of my current job as a freelancer, which is its own little irate community in and of itself, with people with a hundred articles published or feeds drawn on tend to snarl a bit at those with only ten or are just starting out.

In truth, I am aware of this rather silly habit of mine, and try to temper it with at least some good advice (ie, 'buy some shoes, no one want to smell your feet') so I don't come off as horrible as those who picked on me. I hope this softens the blow for my muppet-looking victims, and isn't just a justification in my own mind to be a twat.

Teleport THIS

The other day, I was approached by a very aggressive Italian fellow who seemed committed to the idea that I was to be his sweetheart. Like most Romeos, this bloke used arguments of feelings to convey his intent; there was nothing rooted in fact and nothing rooted in deed.

"u will be my sweetheart," he cooed via IM.

"Not likely."

"u r my mistress"

"Very unlikely."

"lol"

Now, I'll chat up anyone at anytime and show respect and compassion. However, as soon as disrespect enters into the other person's words and deeds, well, all bets are off. No negotiation, no warning.

So I did an old trick of mine. I teleported to the Isle of Lesbos, which as you may guess, is not very freindly to the male half of the species. I flew over the main dance area, where gals were slipping and sliding all round each other. Then I IMed the Italian stallion.

"Do you want to join me in my bedchamber?" I asked. Always found the word 'bedchamber' to sound rather like a torture device, but still, it fit the moment.

"yes," he answered in monosyllabic joy.

So I sent him an offer of teleport. He materialized, and fell 200 meters to a lynch mob in thigh-high boots.

I love newbies that want to bang me.

No, for serious, I do.

The only thing I'm not serious about is saying "for serious" seriously.

In Second Life, newbies that want to pixel-poke me are grotesquely charming and earnest. Expecting an easy bit of somethin'-somethin' from the gothy bit of beauty that I am, they are mortified when I actually engage them in conversation. Admittedly, at the beginning, their opening lines are invariably "hi" followed by the probing "how r u". And before they type the latter, I have already typed, in my 75 WPM way, "fine, thanks for asking. how's your travels today?" and hit ENTER the second after they do.

There is no end to the derisive fun I have by walking in the path of one of these horny bastards - easily identified by the spiky hair (or, bonus, free motorcyclist hair), muppet face (or brooding guy with a goatee) and dark blue sweater and jeans (or big wooden-looking bit of cock jutting out like a divining rod of pussy).

One bloke tried to make a convincing argument that he was destined to be with me and that he wanted me as his first. Barf. When I told him that newbies' ambition trumps their abilities to navigate a bed and text at the same time, he refuted me by saying that just because he is new doesn't make him a good lover. When I asked who he would rather have flying a plane he was on - an experienced pilot or someone with no experience but, by gosh, a whole lot of hope to be a good pilot - he was "dumbfound." His word, not mine. Not dumbfounded, mind you, just "dumbfound." Well, I couldn't agree more.

And I toddled off, watching my own virtual butt sway, thanks to a killer sexy-walk animation override, as I went.

Although I am politely sadistic when it comes to these exchanges, I must take pause to note that I hope, through my sharp (yet never personally insulting) tone, that these boys might talk to the next woman they come across (or, yes, want to come across) with a tad more respect.

Cops and Whores

Charged with a glass of wine and cigarettes, I wandered through SL last night on my favourite type of quest: an interesting chat. Yes, I must admit that, as much as I like wandering, what I really adore is running into a random man or woman from a random place in the world and chatting them up for a while. To me, there are few things finer in the glorified chat room that is Second Life.


Last night, I came across a newbie (a/k/a person new to Second Life, for those who live only in the real world) and had a touching chat. He is a little over twice my age and is getting into SL because he was retired - but not retired by choice. Years of smoking had given him COPD, so his career as a police officer was cut short. We discussed things he could get up to in SL, and I am happy to report that, of all the things he said he wanted to do, have sex with me was not on the list. As I've said before, I enjoy a good virtual shag now and again, but after a 30 minute chat with someone about lives, careers and situations, I rather don't want to hear, 'well, let's fuck.' He did say I was hot a few times, but, hey, nothing wrong with that. No, in this case, at the end, the only thing I gave him was a folder of landmarks to various free places before bidding him adieu.


Later, I was on a desolate island (having put the word 'desolate' in my search engine) and met a whore. I could not glean much from her, as she was using a translator that itself needed a translator, but I did get that she was a whore in RL and a whore in SL. Regarding the latter, she's also a cheap whore - charging a mere 300 Lindens (about $1.20 in US currency) for a relatively standard cuddle/blow job/fuck episode. However, what struck me was she alternated repeatedly between saying "I want to quit" and "I want more customers." Each time I followed her down either line of thinking, she would jump to the other. She found the act fairly degrading after years of doing it in SL, and hated her avatar, which she had to distort beyond reason (big boobs, huge ass, wide eyes) in order to keep up her virtual lifestyle. Instead of escapsim, here was a girl who actively translated her own misery in the real world into a virtual misery in Second Life. I friended her just before I left, but I have no idea what I'd say to her if I saw her again.


It wasn't the most happy or exciting pair of people I met, and certainly it ranks low on the adventure-o-meter. But I hope that, having met me, they might have had a bit more of a smile. Am I being selfish or hopeful? Probably a bit of both, eh?

Viewer to a Kill

So I was driving the other day and split a newbie in two. I felt bad, of course. I had just bought those tires, and now I had to get all that newbie blood off of the grooves for fear my car would start acting like a newbie: running into walls, jerking back and forth, overusing gestures and asking women, "were u from?"

I haven't read much about this from any other SL'er, but the new viewer is making me want to strangle some puppies. Thanks to the latest batch of improvements, which includes generally outpacing what my computer can keep up with (and automatically readjusting my settings to "piss poor", I believe it is) and having people materialize as a cloud of vaper (a wiiiiiiiiiild improvement over the greyness of strangers, eh?) for 1 second to about 5 minutes, I now crash more frequently than John McCain over Vietnam. This has curbed my shopping sprees severely - I have only bought one new dress in a fortnight, which is a personal record - as well as taking a great deal of the fun out of my traditional activity of plonking a random word in the search engine and exploring to my heart's content. Even transporting can give me that frozen-moment-in-time feeling just as the Second Life Crash Notice arrives in the middle of my screen.

The other day, though, I was happily united/reunited/introduced to the one and only Olivia Hotshot. Olivia and I met, of all places, on flickr and had been bandying about some chuckles and observations for a few months, it seems. Finally, we met in-world and she was even more frustratingly lovely and kind in virtual person as she is in her flickr photo account. Still, I did have to take a break at one point, as I crashed in the middle of a balloon ride. How embarrassing is that? It's like crapping oneself on a date with a handsome rogue of good breeding. "Sorry, be right back..."

When I get irritated by such things, I tend to seek out newbies and - well, not pick on them, exactly - but pass on my irritation to them. In most cases, honestly, I do like to chat up new folks to SL because they are, for the most part, the nicest people. They haven't learned to be right bitches and bastards yet. But those aren't the ones I seek out. I seek out the ones who read about hot sex on SL from CNN or the BBC and show up with their muppet faces and wooden cock attachments looking to rub one off in time to watch the news. They are easy enough to spot (see Cock, Big Wooden, Attachment Of), so I sort of get in their sights and then mercilessly rip them to pieces. Usually, this takes the form of correcting their grammar, but sometimes, I simply deride them with cruel and intense laughter. Of course the best way to make these morons get stuck in the mud of their own logic, is to chide them with, "Do I want to fuck you? Are you serious? Would *YOU* fuck you? Not likely. So why would anyone else want to?"

Yeh, I'm not the nicest person at times...

RL and SL: Escapism or Extension?

In some ways, Second Life is a simple form of escapism, a way to explore one's more adventurous or dark corners - at least that's the more accepted psychology behind it. I suspect at times that, instead of escapism, SL actually commands one to be oneself - only to the nth degree, as if the virtual world lends license to make oneself into a caricature of oneself. A 3-D parody, if you will.

I would be hesitant to completely dismiss the 'escapism' theory, but I would put forward that escapism blends too easily with rationalization.

I have a good mate on SL called Beth who, in real life ("RL"), is seeing a married bloke and has been seeing him for several years. The two of them share anniversaries and money, like a real couple, only without the 'real' or the 'couple' bits. In RL, her man often begs off seeing her, as he has a real family to attend to. As in any relationship borne out of deception, there are trust issues galore. Is he seeing someone else? Will he find someone new? Is he telling the truth? As a veteran of that kind of arrangement, I know you can't get past trust issues. If the foundation of a relationship is a betrayal, then one can hardly hope for anything not tainted by some sort of distortion.

Beth and her man are on SL as well. They owned a club for a while, even (his idea, her money - which seems to be a trend). I visited there once at the behest of another girl, Candy, who was a dancer there. Beth's man, who was also present, almost immediately instant-messaged me, hoping he and I could spend some, ahem, quality time together.

Months later, Beth and I had a cup of virtual coffee and she told me she was concerned about her man seeing someone else behind her back. I was sympathetic, as she was quite upset, but I really just wanted to shake her and say, 'what do you expect, really?' Beth is a sweet girl and a kind soul, but somewhere along the way, she found it acceptable to be The Other Woman. Her bid to the The Main Woman in SL doesn't seem to have been too successful. Anyway, she asked for my help, and I suggested I simply talk to her man and see if he makes a move, and then take pictures of whatever followed. She didn't go for that - she didn't want to anger him. I think, rather, she didn't want it proven that she's dating a jerk. No girl does, really, certainly if such a revelation would involve witnesses.

Beth wanted me to chat up this mysterious other woman, and I agreed. I went to her island, or sim, but never saw her apart from a guy who Beth suspected was an alternative avatar of her man. Bit complicated, eh? So I haven't talked to the woman - and am unsure if I will. The cuts in RL have bled into SL, and there's little relief I could offer.

And then I look at me. How much is my SL persona just a continuation, or cartoon, of my real self? And how do I like being my own parody?

So I Had This Black Bloke Once

So I had this black bloke once. I thought it would be a bit of a giggle; something outside the box, so to speak; a new perspective; an adventure. I certainly didn't think we would wind up crooning 'Ebony and Ivory' at the Lost Gardens of Apollo, but I thought it would be an interesting experiment nonetheless.

Instead, sex with him was like being trapped in a 1970s blaxploitation film. Seriously, I have not been called a bitch, whore and slut with such frequency since high school (and then only by my fellow bitter girlfriends). I gave up the idea of rubbing one out and instead just watched in amazement as his hyperbole drove past Dirty and detoured to Vile. My favourite, or least favourite, comment was "I gonna make you preg cum bank." Hello. Well, I'll give this to my nubian prince; I've never quite heard that line before. In addition to the fairly ugly idea of being a human sperm bank, I have yet to view possible pregnancy as a turn-on.

Generally, even if I am not into a bloke, which is surprisingly often, I do encourage him to finish, as it were. However, with the inticement of becoming in the 'family way', I just could not resist the urge to coo in response, 'so you're going to pay for it?'

'what?'

'the abortion'

'huh?'

'or would you rather just knock me up and then leave me to raise our little mulatto wonder on my own?'

'what?'

Etc. Now, I'm a decent fan of SL sex, to be honest. It's rather like creating your own pornographic film, with a decent balance of objectifying and cooperation. And, like creating a pornographic film, I take care to view it as a job - meaning, I never risk emotional connection. But I've not been a fan of stereotypes. And have yet to be in a situation, SL or RL, that I will tolerate it.

-Madelyn

Wonder Bitch

Like most games with an immersion element, starting out in Second Life is like an additional childhood. As a newbie, everything is unknown. Rules, etiquette, parameters, boundaries. The possibilities are indeed infinite and I recall having a true sense of wonder in my first few days wandering about. And then one meets a few experienced people. In virtual worlds - be it World of Warcraft, Diablo, or Second Life - experience equates to some sort of ranking process. In other words, the more experience, the higher one deems oneself to be important. Those just starting out aren't viewed as even proper people yet. Hence the term 'newbie', which, despite its cute sound as it rolls off the tongue, sounds fairly insulting. Awfully close to 'kewpie doll' or even the more vulgar 'booby' - which, when compared to 'breast', sounds like a cartoon.

And, just like real life, I discovered that supressing wonder in favour of attitude was the only way to survive in Second Life. It was not my plan to be a bitch; it was just my plan to not be harrassed or insulted. Nowadays, I can hurl myself into any social situation. The upside is I just don't care what others say; the downside is, I don't often have a feeling of wonder.

As I improved my avatar - new hair, new clothes, new skin - so did attention from men (and some women) seem to spike. I discovered that male attention was directly related to my boob size: the bigger the boobs on my chest, the bigger the boobs in my Instant Messenger. I shrunk my chest down to a B-cup (though some girlfriends of mine insist, in a fairly critical tone, I have a C-cup) and found the male attention tolerable.

On that subject, men are pretty much idiots. I have heard the same questions so many times in my year and a half in Second Life that, in my profile online, I created a FAQ For Dummies designed to save time.

Q. How r u?

A. Learn to spell.

Q. How are you?

A. I'm fine.

Q. Where are you from?

A. My parents got it on, and presto.

Q. How old are you?

A. 105.

Etc. I'm not sure why men insist on asking the same six questions - but then that's not true, either. They ask the same six questions because those are the only ones they can answer themselves. And usually that's the case, where I'm asked where I'm from, I respond, and then they respond to their own question.

Tool: Where are you from?

Me: England.

Tool: I'm from Argentina.

Me: You don't say.

The men whose company I have enjoyed usually kick off with a statement or observation - and not necessarily about me ("nice boots", as a starter, is fine, as it will warrant a "thank you" and a mental note that I've been observed, but little else). The end result is, of course, that I'm a bit of a bitch. Poor blokes can't help it if they're socially retarded - and I do feel bad spurning. But I'm not a special needs tutor, either. So fuck all that.

Madelyn Writer 101

Here's things you need to know first.

I am a woman. 26 (at present). My first name is Madelyn. My last name is not Writer. My hair is boring (see picture for accurate representation). Relatively good looking. Relatively troubled. Single. I am at constant war over whether or not to get a tattoo. And I'm British.

This blog is about my adventures in the virtual world, Second Life. Second Life is a virtual world (http://www.secondlife.com/) which is as immersive as one can easily attain at this point. In this virtual world, you can go just about anywhere and do just about anything. This blog will cover the anywheres and anythings in detail.

Chances are I will - if I can figure it out - disable all comments on the blog proper. I want to be very frank and honest here, and chances are I would start to curtail such honesty if I was aware of any kind of fanbase or following or whatever. I will say you can reach me personally at madelynwriter@yahoo.com should you read along and feel you have come to know me or something.

So here goes.