home: https://starling.us/sl
by Ĝan Ŭesli Starling
(aka Aplonis Ember)
copyright 2013
The continuing story of our long-distance romance first begun in the virtual world Second Life .
To read of our story from the begining, start here: SL — 2008
Our 2013 real-life honeymoon, should you wish to view it, is here: Real Life
The Second Life environment is a very immersive one. It draws you in. People behind the avatars are real. Some come in-world to pretend to be someone else, but after a while, most find they can't help but be themselves. Stay in long enough, and you get to know them for real. They also you. For Sylea and I that took almost no time at all. Five years later we got married and some of our SL friends were invited.
I fear that this record is a little hit-and miss. I've kept some and left out others purely for subjective reasons. Often I was simply to busy to bother with taking snapshots (which at high-res, freezes my screen and sometimes even breaks my connection). So there are significant gaps. Lastly is that, many a night Karin (Sylea's RL person) and I chose instead to sychnronize our video players to watch the same movie together while connected in audio using either Yahoo Msgr or Skype.
When in-world on a Saturday night, seldom do Sylea and I elect to miss out on Drama Libre. That very artistic group (whose website is here: Drama Libre have rebuilt their entire sim every week without a miss since 2006. We often come last-minute, and sometimes not even in costume (for this one we did) but still are always made very welcome. First thing we always do is hunt for the couples-dance pose balls. Usually they're someplace up high.
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This night's theme at Drama Libre was Hades. It was quite a party. The silvery cloud is somebody's ava failing to rez on people's screens. It might for some but not others.
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Two who were fairly regular for our shift at the club Freakehnheim's Funeral Home were our friends DaUnit and Rhyanna. Another couple (a least in-world) they too would DJ and hostess. For our real-life wedding, had we been able to afford a larger one, we definitely would have hired a costumed Frank the Bunny to serve as usher. Relaxing in our SL home, I click my inventory to the romantic effect. A more appealing one obtained when we both attended the Eleven Village theme night at Drama Libre.
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On the 2nd, we choose a couple's dance from a menu in the floating skull outside Freakheim's Funeral Home. Three weeks later we're back at Drama Libre for their Mardi Gras Galveston night. Karin's costume for her Sylea was especially delightful. Being an impatient shopper, I tend to buy the first item that fits the bill. But this night our colors matched pretty well.
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In second life it's possible even to become virtually pregnant. Tummy Talkers are scripts to simulate a what a fetus would say if it could communicate. On a timed loop, they type innane text into the scrolling public chat. Very annoying.
Svarga is one of SL's most amazing artistic attractions. It's just so very well done. Sometimes it even rains there. The whole ecology is simulated on a complex algorithm.
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When the distance between is nearly 3,000 miles plus a national border, the medium of SL helps us to feel closer together. Often we'll just park our ava's on a romantic pose while ejoying to hear each other's voice. If SL's voice channel is glitchy that night, then we might switch to Skype. If there's trouble also there, then Yahoo Msgr will serve our need.
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Drama Libre's theme for the 5th was The Cotton Club.
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One of Sylea's first SL acquaintences is Sly Nirpaw. They were newbies together. Now he owns his own SL club: Devil's Rejects. Mostly we'd visit but sometimes we'd play there.
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Here we are off on SL adventure, touring sims, taking in the amazing 3D art. Had I twice my current Internet bandwidth, I'd love to try seeing this in full, actual, 3D.
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Drama Libre's News at 7 theme night featured a giant studio control desk. Any TV character sufficed for a costume.
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Opening up the seaward wall of the Blue Tattoo gave it a much more wide-open feel. With Murmuration gone, the owners let me plant our thornheart tree there. It added homeyness to the place for Sylea and I.
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Sampan City was the theme for Drama Libre on the 13th. This whole set (like every prior) had been built in just a few days.
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Often we'd have low turnout for our sets. Partly this was do to the hour, partly also for our genre being totally eclectric: psych & goth mixed with show tunes and love songs, stuff dating from the 60's right up to now. I'd play bands nobody'd heard of or the flip-side of hit singles. Best was when I'd play a song sung by Sylea herself. These she'd send me sung without accompanyment straight into her own computer. There are commercial singers who can't really quite manage that.
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On the 21st, Drama Libre hosted a Cyberpunk theme. Sylea and I slapped together what costume we could. This night I remember particualrly well for how artfully the DL team simulated a rain-slick streetscape. They did it by making the ground semi-transparent. Below it was an upside down, mirror image of all the buildings above. Extremely clever, was it not?
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I quite like puns. The very name of the Twisted Joint club was a pretty good double entendre. Not sure if it's still there.
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Company is very fine much of the time. But when you have each other alone time can be even more welcome.
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So much more entertaining to me than watching strangers kick air-filled bladders atop plastic grass is to spend time with people I know no matter how far away they might be. No idea which teams played any games at this time, but I remember this well enough.
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Thinking I'll make this my Facebook background pic now that the season is returning. Sadly, the Blue Tattoo club at this time did not have much longer to run. One of the co-owners, an ava named Rip, was coming in-world less and less often. His partner tried her best to manage it all by herself. I would have bought it except that in the real world my funds were kind of tight due to a divorce having dragged on for over two years with only the lawyers gaining advantage.
At time of writing, those issues are settled. Happily married in the real world, we have a lovely little ranch house on a 2-acre wooded lot barely two miles from a park on the shores of Lake Michigan. For years we'd been looking for just the right one. Karin spotted it first, seeing it listed on-line all the way from Canada. It's perfect for us. We held our wedding in the front yard on a day of perfect weather. SL friends were invited but it was too far for most. By this time next year, we expect all the immigration red tape to be settled so that she'll have moved here, not for a vist, but to stay. Counting the days.
To see the neighboring TGPs in this series, click here: SL — 2008 SL — 2009 2010 SL — 2011