Two things.

First of all, I've added a ton of pics to Flickr, including a random (IC) introspection post.

Second of all, because I'm completely stuck on my NaNoWriMo novel (no, I won't tell you my username on NaNo, it's linked to RL and I really don't want to link RL and SL. I do, however, recommend NaNoWriMo to anyone who even remotely likes writing/storytelling/novelling.), I've started writing a new one. It is Amrys's story. I'm trying to tell it from Amrys's point of view, and without biasing any more than she would to making her seem like some big hero.
I'm starting with the scene where she runs away ;)

So what I'm wondering is... how lame is that? I mean, very little of the story did I come up with on my own. Most of the interaction comes from other characters. I'm worried that later, I'll have to start sludging through the chat log just to keep everything as close to accurate as possible.

Meh, if you'd read it, please let me know. I'd like to feel that I'm not just wasting time, even if it's a fun diversion.

Color

Something occurred to me while chatting with some NaNoers in-world.

Colors are thought to have meaning, and to tell about your personality when worn.

IRL, I usually wear lots of grey and soft blues. This (supposedly) means that I like to blend in and am calm (or seek to be calm). According to this website, it also means that I come off as uncaring. Hadn't realized that. I also wear very relaxed clothing, and cover most of my body regardless of the weather. Insecure? Maybe. Quiet? Hell yes.

ISL (in SL), I wear lots of red and black (mostly red). Note that red is the boldest of colors, and is recommended to be worn for interviews. It says the person is energetic and powerful. Do I want to seem that way? Well, yes. But it wasn't intentional... I didn't think, "What color will make me seem powerful?" And black seems powerful as well, sort of the period at the end of red's sentence.

Anyway, that's all my random commentary.
Pictures whenever I figure out how to export from inventory. Meanwhile, if you look me up inworld, you can see a more recent pic of my avi.

Amrys's letters

Amrys keeps letters written on scrap paper stashed in the back of her locker.

Мама,

I hope you have not been worried. Maybe there is good reason, but I must assure you, that I am well. The past... nearly five years! Have been almost a blur. This is the first I've been able to write. I hope I can find a post to Новгород.

Maybe I should start at the beginning, but I think for now it is better to explain where I am. I am in a strange city called Midian. It is on an island; I don't know, exactly where. I am living with a group of cats, who call themselves ,,The Catwalkers." This name, I think, is because they own the catwalks over the city--it is our territory. This city is so crowded, but that is partly because up high, there are so few. It seems that many humans fear heights! And there are many humans here.

I am learning much. Did you know, that we speak two languages? I did not know language meant more than just the means of communication. They are called ,,Russian" and ,,English." Russian is the words like ,,кошка"; English is words like "cat."

Right now I am training for a job. I get paid перввй раз today. I think I will not explain this job until I tell you about before I arrived here. It is a good job, не беспокоись! It does involve self-defense training. My trainer is another Catwalker named Beast. She is scary, but also a good friend. We--Beast, myself, Ravi, Jes, Dazy, and a few other Catwalkers--went camping earlier this week. We behaved as kittens, and that is part of what made me decide to write.

Ешё раз, я прошу тебя, что не беспокоишься. I am happy and about as safe as one can be in such a city as this. I have a warm and safe home, good friends, and soon I will have a well-paying job in security.

I leave a space for when I find out if we have a proper address. I'm sorry, I know you must have been worried. Пиши меня! Будь здорова!

Котёнка твоя,
Амрысь

If you are interested in your character finding Amrys's letters, please contact me in-world. This information is to be taken as OOC unless the letters are found.

Lack-of-Coherency warning: this post is a whiny rant with little/no topic, and absolutely no substance.

I don't update this much. Sorry.

I'd post some awesome pictures from RP like I've been meaning to do for a while... but I'm on my old computer. Which means NO SL, NO RP, NO HOMEWORK (sad, actually, as I've much due next week), and NO planning for D&D.

So basically now all there is left is email, blog, and knitting. This computer can't handle much.

He (yes, my computers are male) weighs about 7 pounds and has 512 MB of RAM. So I'm not going anywhere--especially considering that I took the battery out, since it doesn't last long enough anyway to keep it unplugged. The weight was without battery. It's like a crappy desktop! Whee!

*contemplates trying to find all the parts to build a frankencomputer... Then remembers that it's Friday in a small, un-nerdy college town.*

Meanwhile, some commentary on SL's new "Adult" ratings!
Sumup: WTF.

Okay, let me get this straight. If it displays or promotes sex and/or violence, it's adult. If it does not promote either but has hints of it, it's either mature or adult, depending on Linden Lab's POV on the exact case. If it would be rated G in a movie, it's "PG".

So the way I see it is... the only ratings available in SL (and I use movie terms because I lack skill with words today) are G and X.
And I list "mature" content in G... because most sims I go to that are labelled "Mature" are cleaner than some Disney movies.

Okay, that was more of a rant than a review. My computer died today. There was much screaming and cursing and acts of violence (that would get my apartment moved to Zindra).

Today, I don't actually want to be a Pepper too. I just want my computer back.

Recent events in SL

Well... Let's see...

= Amrys is in training to become a Ghost... it's going slowly, partly because I suck at riddles and partly because I haven't been on much in a while.
= Amrys has finally found a disguise! And while in disguise, at the Masquerade, she met a people, and this people is Artika. She's all loopylovey, but who knows if it will go anywhere...
= Amrys's pledge seems to have disappeared? D: Never did much with her, because she joined right before the big internetfail (meaning, I failed at internets, not that the internets failed.)

I don't know what else to say... seemed like I should say something, though.
I'm debating starting a "diary" for Amrys.

Flickr... I'm too lazy to blog.

For most updates on Amrys, go to the flickr album... it's got more in it, really. I forget to update here.

The latest:

Moar pictyahs!

SL stuff
Because my second life and my RP within SL are slightly different? Perhaps it explains something.
I finally figured out why my avi looks so horrible... it IS the shape, not the skin. I wasn't sure. But my shape for Amrys fixed it up, except the lips were off, so I modded slightly and now have much less horror in the nose/cheek area.

SL Bloopers: Fun with editing!
Okay, there's only one. But this is the only time I've ever gotten my avi cross-eyed.

I was trying to make my own hair (hint: never finished).


Dancing at Club Rockaway with Strangeleaf Langstrumpf. ((Some of you know him as Crazyperson.))

RP Stuff
Amrys's outfit in general has been updated... Magical OOC fairies brought her a shirt I got out of a camp chair ages ago (back before the SL hiatus of whatever-month-or-three), and Beast dyed her hair red (Amrys thought it would be revenge against her mentor for dying Beast's [red] hair blue.). I also swapped the ears with some that can be moved around a good bit, which is nice for displaying emotes.


I am vengeance... I am the night... wait, whut? Is Amrys, watching the city from above.


Amrys is swimmin with the fishies in the CW den!


Grumpily perched on a crate in the den.


Perched on a rail... in the... sewer. Ew. OOC ;) Was attending the RP combat lesson.

---

So the other night, Midian hosted a huuuge fundraiser for Relay for Life. How did we do it?
JAIL BAIL '09.
I signed up to play an NPC police officer ;)

This is she. Her name was Lisa Powell, and she was kind of a bitch.


And our first stop on the arrest list... The den! To pick up Ellie (not in picture). Several other CWs were arrested, including...


My sponsor, MJ!
And you can see next to his cell the donation box.

Basically, a ton of people were arrested, then their bails were set. Donate to get them out of jail, then they would "owe you" IC for helping them out. So it's still Midian style ;)
Before it was even fully over, $400 (USD, not L$) had been raised. Whoo!

---

Bloopers and Outtakes from Midian!


Amrys: It's bigger on the inside!!
Srsly, why is the TARDIS in MIDIAN? Is someone playing a 'Doctor' character?


Whutthepear. Why was there a giant pear wielding a scythe... playing hopscotch? And really, it was--there's a poseball for the hopscotch stuff.


You really can't see what's so epic about this picture without clicking to zoom in. Sorry.


Not much of an outtake, but whatever. It's the den (most of it), the church, etc.
Midian from Amrys's point of view, basically.

---

I think that's all I've got. I'd spam you with slURLs to places I like, but... that's spammy, and not that helpful. Contact me in-world if you want to know where I got something, most of what I own is random accumulated freebies or being worn (or both!).

I'm hoping to make some stuff and start a shop relatively soon, so I hope peoples keep an eye out for that.

Why you do/don't RP with people your entire faction is voiding:

You tend to get hurt. But you might get a chance to throw her off a roof.
Yes, I said throw her off a roof.

Note: CW is shorthand for Catwalker.
And for those of you who have never read this blog before: This is in an ONLINE RP community. None of this happened to anyone in real life. No people/cats/roofs were injured in the making of this battle scene.
So here's several hours of chat-RP in a nutshell:
Amy Nohkan (who CWs have mostly begun voiding in general) approached CWs myself and a kitten I was hanging out with, Kat[rinaElizebeth Karu]. The other CWs, as we'd been advised, ignored her. Kat, who is not a CW, had probably not been advised of this, or if she had, well, she had revenge reasoning, if I understand her backstory correctly. She had taken bullets for another kitten when this character attacked before.
Amy came up to the den's boundary, and I, like a good little pledge, told her to back off. She smirked and backed off. Then she asked what was in Kat's bag. We ignored her, continued talking. She came up to grab the bag, and I put my hand on it, and Kat and I both told her to back off. She wanders over to where a fight is starting up. We see the fight and Amy, pull out phones to message our respective authority figures.
Amy was not pleased. And there was a fire fight! (what is that from??)
She tried to stab Kat, I kicked the blade and Kat dodged anyway. She managed to shoot Kat in the stomach, I stabbed Amy in the leg (well. aiming for the chest. Threw the knife.) and grabbed on to her legs. Was kicked in the jaw. Managed to drag Amy over the edge of the roof, biting her leg to hold on.

Whoo. Carried Kat to the Medical Center (MCMC). Now I know who her mommy is! Oh my. Amrys now has a get out of jail free card.

I took these pics largely to show off Amrys's nose. But here is Amrys keeping Kat company at MCMC.

Catwalker Scavenger Hunt!

First of all, Amrys is now a Catwalker Pledge!
(It's like being a pledge to a sorority or a fraternity, including the ppppledge ppppin, except it's not lame. It's awesome.)
Anywho, from here on out, this is going to be an IC ("In Character," for the non-RP people) post.
It's basically the massive email/text message/thing that she's sending to her sponsor, MJ.
Because it costs money (okay, like a quarter. But STILL.) to upload the pictures to SL as textures.

---

I finished the scavenger hunt! Did you know this thing has one of those timer camera things in it? It's pretty cool, I didn't know they made phones with those.

Anyway, here are the pictures.

Take photos of the following things in the city, and turn in a notecard with the photos when done!

1. Wolf graffiti


2. Holy birds


3. Theater stage


4. A merry-go-round


5. An ambulance


6. A memorial


7. A rooftop fire


8. Record store


9. Advertisement for pop tarts


10. A piano / organ


Anyway, I hope this is satisfactory.

Oh, and don't let me forget to submit an incident report--we ran into someone on the roof earlier, and I came in as backup.

--Amrys Kotenka

Amrys is taking over :O

I sort of saw this coming, but I'm almost always in RP mode now. Watch out, might start a diary for Amrys! Haha... I tend to try to think in character when I'm playing, so it's easy to do that right after an RP session.

So, what's happened...
She's inquired about joining catwalkers and intends to do so. OOC, I've submitted the application and am just waiting to hear back. Excitement!

I made a new shirt (twice, plus a second version of it that I didn't upload), which is grey with blue stars and says "звёзды" ("stars") on it. Amrys wears it under her jacket. It's a little tacky, but the idea is that it actually shows off her color a little better (eventually she WILL take off the jacket! But I'm so cold IRL that I don't want her to, it'll make *me* cold!) and since it's grey, I can give it a slight color without messing it up (as long as I'm careful of the stars), so if it clashes when it first uploads [it did], then I'm fine :) I like uploading grey things and coloring them in world.

The problem is... I decided to try making a new set of ears using this method and a hair texture I had made, so that the inner ear color would be slightly different. No luck. I forgot that you can't have different colors on one object, just different textures. So I'll have to color out of world and bring it back in if I'm going to do that with just one prim. Which means I'll stick with the ears that I bought.

I think I'll start posting stores and stuff that I like, but right now I'm a little short on time on the posting and don't want to log in to look up the slurls. I know I'll be on too long if I do :O

Fun with photography!
If you didn't know, in Second Life you can take a picture twice in order to get a more "realistic" look. First take the picture with color, then with depth. Avatars are always in the foreground with depth (from what I've seen), so it's not perfect, but it's pretty good.
Then layer it in photoshop or similar program with the depth layer over the color in screen, linear dodge, or exclusion (I used exclusion, but all of those worked; exclusion just brought out the color best in the picture that I did this to first). Save as a jpg, gif, or png... one of the standard formats, and you're good :D

Here's one I did just now:

exclusion


screen


linear dodge

They're kind of small, but you can see slight differences. Exclusion is the "foggiest" (and probably most appropriate for a scene of someone sitting high above Midian). Linear dodge lets the most color through from the background.
If you wanted to emphasize the background more, there are ways to do this too; never fear ;)

Anyway, I'm out of time to post (curse blogger's slow upload! I should just use that flickr account), so...

See you on #2!

~Ameretat

Midian City newbishness

My character now has a skin to match her description :D
She's blue. People keep saying to me (when I'm not in Midian and just haven't bothered to change back into my "normal" outfit) "You're blue."
Apparently, I wouldn't know that I'm blue?
I keep getting that weird song stuck in my head because of it.

I've been trying to get better pictures, but that's kind of hard to do in Midian when your skin color isn't that far off in value from the surrounding environment.
Also--seeking better hair for her. It's a lot less visible now that she's blue, but she still has little bits of ear showing D: This is not good.

I'm finally branching out a little bit in RP; I've mostly been RPing with one person, and otherwise just sort of bumping into people and getting kicked out of places (eg, that rooftop in the picture--she's not allowed there. IC and OOC I thought that was outside of Catwalker territory, though :( She'll have to live somewhere else, I guess; she's supposedly been sleeping on those roofs). But I finally ran into some Catwalkers besides just being a little too close to their territory and being run out, so hopefully her name's floating around. *resists urge to metagame*

Anyway, Midian city now has a wiki, and I have a page! Amrys's wiki page

Shiny.

I don't really know what else to say... I'm debating starting one of those "diary" things for her, but I don't think that's really something she'd do? I don't know.

Anyway, for lack of anything to say, I'm off.
~Ameretat

Pictures!

This is my character in Midian City. She is scary? No, not really.


And this is my normal look, except I've modified my shape a little since and I changed the sock-things. Also, I have sandals now, that I made :) But this is my profile pic.

Nyao.

I just found out that the Roleplay Academy at Midian will be having classes on Thursday evening! Hooray, I can start playing.

Also, I got my eyes set up as cat eyes... XD Took two uploads though, which sucks. Turns out eyes are rotated 90 degrees. Which way, not sure. Didn't matter in the end ;)

I'll post pictures sometime...

I feel silly...

I noticed a lot of people on SL had blogger or wordpress blogs, and decided to start one of my own... Admittedly, I don't do a lot on SL, so I don't know why I'm even bothering. But we'll see.

So a little about me:
-The name's Ameretat Skytower
-I spend most of my time around Club Rockaway (I like the music) and Midian City (I think I might start roleplaying there, but for now I just wander around with an 'observer' tag over my head and enjoy the music)
-I dress with cat ears and tail. I am not a furry, nor do I have some weird fetish about animals, RL or SL. I like cats and identify with them.
-I tend to fly even when it's probably better to walk. Maybe that's a newbish thing to do. I don't know. I notice that in a lot of places people walk instead. Even though I've learnt to use my camera angles better, I still really prefer to fly around things.
-I tend to have no idea what to say to people, so I don't initiate conversation, even when I sort of want to. So I have relatively few friends, most of whome are people who randomly freinded me.

And that's all I can think of! So come say hi in SL!