Pondering Halloween in SL

Okay, I'm confused. If I put on a mermaid tail, is that my avie or is that my Halloween costume?

In a world where people can be anything they want, what do you wear to a costume party?

Bibi Book wears a witch's hat all year long. If she takes off her hat, would the absence of her hat be her Halloween costume? Would October 31st then be a "Nah-loween" day for her?

And, with your name tag floating above your head, what's the point of a masquerade ball? I mean, 90% of the men wear the same couple of skins, so that's pretty much like wearing a mask.

Who knew that choosing a Halloween costume in virtual reality would be so much harder than choosing one in real life? How do you put together a costume that won't be mistaken as an avie?

/me wonders if she needs a hover text that says, "This is my Halloween costume."

Pygmalion and Frankenstein

Being fiercely independent, I am irked to no end when someone does something for my "own good" without my permission, as though I don't know what's good for me. I see those people as taking my free will away from me.

I'm pretty sure I've been manipulative and controlling myself. We hate in other people what we hate in ourselves. In fact, I remember feeling frustrated because January lover would not modify his avie for me. We tend to be even more manipulative and controlling with people who are close to us, especially our lovers.

The weird thing is that, irl, we are limited to changing our lover's behavior. In SL, we move closer to Pygmalion's mythology in that we have the opportunity to change how they look as well.

The problem is, oftentimes, we are unable or unwilling to handle the monster we've created. Or we forget that there are consequences to changes we make. So the monster is released to the town, with monster and townspeople totally unprepared to deal with the other, causing chaos, fear, and loneliness.

I could say that it would be better if we directed our efforts towards changing ourselves instead of changing others. But saying so would just be another attempt by me to change you, dear reader, wouldn't it?

;)

In the line of fire

I tentatively stick my head back into SL and, suddenly, I find myself embroiled in other people's drama. Well, here's the story. (The names have been changed to protect the... ummm,... ummm,....)

You see, W and P have this quasi-romantic friendship, which is apparently not exclusive.

W met S at Opal's rez day party and they hit it off. Opal warned W that she's playing with fire, but W continued to flirt with S. And the fact that S showed up at odd moments created tension between W and P. So now there's some kind of competition between S and P.

Through all this, W was inexplicably trying to do matchmaking between S and Opal. Opal reiterated that she's in love with M, who's with someone else. And Opal is being a hermit to get over that. Opal once said that she thought S is cute but she decided a long time ago not to flirt with him, because he's one of M's close friends and Opal is not going to hurt M that way. And now that W likes S, Opal has one more reason not to mess with S.

When S asked W to help with an animation for a swing, W suggested that S talk to Opal who is more normal-sized. Since then, S has been talking about Opal in his conversations with W, essentially trying to make her jealous. W understandably got upset with S for pitting us against each other, which I agree is a stupid thing to do.

Now, W is dumping S onto Opal's lap because W claims that S likes Opal more than her. And Opal had no idea what the hell was going on or why she got pulled into this drama in the first place. And W is upset with Opal because she thinks that Opal is taking S's side, when, in fact, Opal is just trying to figure out what's going on without bias.

With a little bit of reflection, Opal came to this assessment of the situation: W likes S and S likes W, but P is still W's primary. To get W's attention, S pitted W and Opal against each other. Now, that is backfiring, and Opal is caught in the line of fire.

Did you get all that? Yeah, it took me a while to figure it out too.

/me crawls back into her foxhole.