Reel Expression

Dig it kats n kittens: another rezday has passed me by.

On May 31st, 2004 I was starting to get bored of City of Heroes and trolling the women gamer forums. I don’t usually look at banner ads but I happened upon an ad about being creative in SL and offering a free trial. You know… back when you had to pay. I had nothing better to do that day, so I went ahead and checked it out.

Now, anyone who’s been around long enough has fond memories of when they first rezzed in. The first few people they met, the silliness that happens when you first try to figure out what the fuck is going on, ect ect. I’m not exactally certain what the hell I did for the first day, but the 2nd is clear as day. I got another gamer friend of mine to try it out and we hid on teamspeak flying around and goofing off. We had happened upon a club that played really shitty music and found the absolutly hilarious free dance bracelets which strung the default animations together into 6 different combos. It still makes anyone laugh when I show it to them :P

Anyways… I don’t think I’ve laughed as hard as I did that night. I remember sitting there in my old SF apartment drinking wine and having a debate on the fact that they had to have figured out how to string those default animations together to make it look like people are having sex. Now I had known my friend for a while (Lanse in SL) playing MMOs with me being the only chick in the guild. To say he was very overprotective of me is a huge understatement. The more we argued about it, the more I laughed and the more I could almost see him blushing. Eventually he wandered off and found a back room shop full of sex objects. I remember very well him telling me not to come in, but I had figured out the camera and rotated the cam around to see him standing there in the midst of all that stuff. Fun Fun.

But that’s not really what I wanted to talk about.. while Lanse and I had some fun times, he was still into CoH and didn’t hang out much in SL. That summer was the last one I spent in the States as I moved to London that Sept. It was also the summer when I spent most of my time with Trinity Serpentine and Kate Hanks (Pictured above with me in 2004 and a couple days ago).

Look at the first picture. Trin and I are wearing some of the first prim hair which actually were just addons. Kate isn’t wearing any because black was the only colour you could find and she has always been partial to blonde hair. Notice the shoes? There were no prim shoes (that I remember). We are also sitting the in default SL sits since there were no AOs yet.

So, I spent most of my first SL summer with these two. Endless hours sitting around talking and laughing. Being silly while Trinny DJed. And of course nekkid dancing! These two have been my favourite SL residents since I met them and I don’t know if I would have stuck around in the beginning without them. They supported me through the years of being a no-name animator. Always more then supportive of every creative thing I have ever done.

And imagine my overwhelming happiness when at SLCC, after giving my very nervous and hungover talk to see the giddy Trinny holding a sign up in the back to her “Lulu.” Frankly that alone made that weekend. And I am overjoyed that we’ll see eachother again the Sept for our FLCC - our holiday which happens to be at the same time and place as SLCC but a boycott of the way the convention is being done now.

In the years since, I may not have been around them as much as I would have liked but no matter how long it’s been, it feels like no time has passed when we do get together. After a few moments of catching up we always tend to fall into the usual ease of conversation. Because of time differences, busy schedules and much needed breaks from SL this weekend was the first time in years since we’d been together. It was one of the very rare times that we’ve all be online at the same time and we’ve usually hung out separatly. It was a very happy day indeed! Far better then any rezday part I could have been bothered to set up.

So… to end the unsual amount of gushing in the post:
Trinny and Kate - Love you!!! *hugs n stuff*
-Luth