supernaturalworldsofsecondlife

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Roleplay Standards; Reasons to use them.

So, it's been a bit with some insanity behind the scenes, but I'm able to actually sit down and form some thoughts and feelings surrounding these things. But first; a scenario! You're going around and you're roleplaying in groups, you're making connections and plans. Things are going good! But then you start to notice some little things that seem off. One of them seems very possessive of your time. Yet another tends to ignore plans they've made as well as hooks. What do you do? Here's where the standards come in. But before I go further, I should note; YOU ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO ROLEPLAY WITH OTHERS. But I will also stress that if you give dates, or tell someone you're 'going to', that implies that said obligation will be met. I'm someone who doesn't expect much out of others aside from the bare minimum. Being good to one another, open communication in regards to potential triggers so I know what to stay away from, etc. Very basic things that help us gauge whether or not we're a 'fit' in terms of collaborative writing and how well our energy bounces. But then you run into two types of people who abuse that. You have the person who will demand EVERY ounce of your time, which is bad... Then you have people who will set a time and day, flake, then set another time and day. When you find yourself the object of obsession to the point they want you to have a certain face credit/claim, or that your character in a video game isn't to their expectations all the while obsessing over scenes that have yet to happen? Drop, block, and run. This is one of the very few instances where I find ghosting absolutely necessary. These are the type of people that you should have standards against because 1) they're suck the energy right out of you and 2) use narcissistic or dark empath traits to keep you there. More times than not, these people are why BadRPerStories exist. Likewise, when you find yourself being flaked out on over and over on specific dates with frequent communication over an obligation? Don't waste your time on them, especially if they're very active in other circles. Hold your standards and quietly drop them. If they ask why -- be honest if you tell them, but don't be a jerk about it. Though, this is another situation where I feel ghosting is very valid because they're not valuing your time enough. And sure, there's nuance to every situation. Maybe IRL came up or the muse isn't there -- in which case it's easier to be honest, that way time isn't invested unnecessarily. Speaking from personal experience, it takes a while to rebuild that momentum back if you're an avid storyteller and you let people walk all over you. Have reasonable standards. Communicate them often. If they cannot meet expectations of either posting cadence deadlines, or just meet a very simple obligation after they said they would? Get rid of them. They're not worth it. If they're obsessing over you, your character to the point you're drained? Get rid of them. If you're in a group RP (discord or video games) and they're always needing to know who you're roleplaying with? Get rid of them. These are, and should be if they aren't, red flags. Block them, block their alts. Having standards will help protect your mental health, help you garner the right people that fit your writing styles best, and generally it helps keep you safe on the internet. We live in a time where this hobby has often turned into a different form of escapism. Where instead it was just a fun thing that we could do, people are using it to completely substitute things in real life and will try to use you to do that. Don't fall for it. If you've found yourself in situations like these, or even going through them currently and you stumble onto this -- it doesn't hurt to re-evaluate your standards. If you feel trapped or stuck? Maybe raise the bar of entry just a little bit. <3

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Shifting Gears.

Until Howling Hills cleans up, or something new comes along, I'll try and make more posts that can hopefully help users protect themselves from problematic roleplayers that unfortunately occupy the same spaces as we do. I'll also be making guides about creating a list of limits and how to enforce them, because just linking your f-list is more about plugging your kinks rather than it is about actual limits (I said what I said). The aim these will be generalized for usage everywhere because this is something that's all too common everywhere, not just SecondLife. With it becoming one of the largest issues of the roleplaying community at large, I want to arm as many people as I can with information so that they can hold others accountable; be they other roleplayers, admins, staff, etc. Note; they will be slow to come out because of that generalization, maybe one a month, but they WILL come out.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Running From the Hills;

We were rooting for you.

It's time to take off the rose-tinted glasses as the honeymoon period has worn off. I've given myself enough time to appreciate the beauty of the build and the lore of the setting of the sim, yet all of that faces a problem that doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon. Lazy admins. Too much open smut in public channels. Cliques everywhere. When I first joined the sim, many had high hopes based on the build that we could expect quality over quantity. Running multiple sims aren't cheap, after all. Yet here we are, watching the same thing happen yet again because admins can't seem to get it right. On the grape vine, there's at least half a dozen missing stairs. This count is not including the two that were recently ejected within the week, but several have been documented of their sexual abuse. Victims of these people are finding it hard to log into the sim because their abusers are in very public positions. If I had a piece of advice for the admins there, it would be this; just because it happened outside of your sim doesn't mean you should keep them. Part of the job of an admin is protecting your community, yet you are openly fostering people who not only abuse, but also stalk others. One of them has a body count of four, yet you're allowing them to continue to walk free despite the evidence stacked against them with multiple accounts all pretending to be different people. There's simply no excuse but lazy administration here. Giving someone a 'chance' when they've got that much of a body count is not the look you think it is. For that matter, one of the recently ousted was combative towards moderators repeatedly and immediately, taking almost a month for them to get the ban hammer. Sims have banned for much, much less. Everyone wants to be the 'lax' sim, but when you leave problematic people in your community, it's anything but that. Not to mention one of your "AHHHD-MIN"s has a racial slur as their pronouns, I'm simply not impressed. You guys should know better. You say that the sim is supposed to be free of any form of discrimination, slurs, and the like, yet you can't bother to right click and check someone's Discord profile? Don't worry, I've already reported it for you. Maybe Discord will get to it when they're not busy trying to dodge subpoenas. Then we get to the high thirst and obvious and cliques that are openly forming. Do you guys not communicate with your members at all? And more than just superficial, face value conversations. I mean actually communicating. It took months to get rid of the person abusing the RDA. Why? Also why are you not vetting players through significant amount of roleplay before placing them in positions of in-character power? People are treating those organizations like special clubs and while you got rid of one weaponizing the RDA, you might want to start paying attention. I may have not run a sim, but even I know this is not what to do. The idea was wonderful to start, having things open for interpretation and having a wide array of different types of supernaturals running around. However the execution of maintaining a healthy roleplayer ecosystem seems to be low priority. Right now you're the highest ranking sim traffic wise across all three of your sims. You still have time to change and become something greater than what you are now. However I'm also not holding my breath. If anything about what I've been seeing has told me anything? History repeats itself. If you don't clean house, it's only a matter of time before the spotlight turns away from Howling Hills and onto a newer sim. Good luck. I really do hope you fix things because I'd hate to see all of that build go to waste.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Back with a different schedule!

So hopefully you all had a good Holiday season! There's quite a few things I'm juggling behind the scenes so things might be sporadic at times. There may be a post a week, sometimes two posts -- there was a lot of urban supernatural/fantasy sims that closed last month, including two that closed during my hiatus (Roanoke, Bellamy) both of which were really under advertised. Roanoke does say that it's a soft close and that they're coming back at some point, but I'm not sure given the limited activity on there. That said -- there is a new sim (or I should say a group of sister sims) that have made a grand, soft opening last night called Howling Hills! The build is beautiful and there's a few minor issues with falling through platforms, but the team is dedicated to squashing bugs. I'll have a review once I get my character settled in, but it's very promising. It's lore is somewhat open to your interpretation aside from some small things here and there (so you have to use your better judgement). They also are really active in their Discord and they have a Flickr (just search Howling Hills, you see it). I also plan on having item reviews at some point as well as more of character worldbuilding stuff that, while may be Second Life specific, will be general sort of posts when I get my footing back because this new sim is going to take up a LOT of time I feel. Basically, expect less posts for a while! They'll come when they come!

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Brief Hiatus!

Since the holidays are coming back around again (Yule next week, Christmas the following, and then the New Year), I'll be taking a brief hiatus! As far as posts go, I'm not sure if I'll have much (if any) until the New Year, but I'll try to have something! If not, I'll have some things written and ready to post once I get back as I've a few things in the pipeline already (like store recommendations based on themes, etc). Since those things in that pipeline might take some time, I'll also be working on posts that better teach how to use various things like LeLutka heads and the Legacy body. If I don't get a chance to post in the meantime though, I hope you all have a good, safe holiday season!

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Deep Dives of Don'ts; Shallow Characters

Since the reviews are out of the way for now, I wanted to try to get into how to establish characters better and what better way than to say what not to do! Far too often I see the models, the celebrities, and the porn stars in urban supernatural settings and I'm not going to beat around the bush here -- that horse has been beaten to death, both on Second Life and in the genre's roleplaying community at large. I'm not here to yuck someone's yum, if that's your cup of tea then you do you. However it's hard to really hook into urban supernatural plots when that's all your character does. Even if they have something supernatural in the background -- it's often overshadowed by this insatiable ERP thirst. Is that really it to the character? With very surface level interactions and hooks, there's not much generated there with roleplay. When you see people either with limits and stipulations of roleplay where smutty scenes don't happen without a purpose or at all -- they mean just that. The reason being is because once it happens, the shallow character just disappears along with the hopes and dreams of a long scale roleplay on any platform, really. What happens when they've flooded the platform? In the case of Second Life, it can be pretty tricky to dodge since that's what the platform generally gravitates to. In some cases they even get rather elitist about it, just like how some do at the Quicksands in Final Fantasy XIV's Balmung. How I navigate the fields of both -- I let people know straight up OOC and IC that it's not going to happen without some good storytelling. They might scoff, roll their eyes, or try to call me elitist about it -- however I'm not the one that's pressuring someone else into a scene they don't feel comfortable with. And for those who DO do this -- Read. The. Room. Really. Because I guarantee if you do that to the wrong person, you're able to get blacklisted from entire sim regions in Second Life, and if you do it on places like FFXIV, you'll get blacklisted from Free Companies. Discord? From hub servers -- you get the idea. When your sole focus is how 'sexy' your character is, how well endowed, or how they have some "unique" beauty that isn't really all that unique -- that's generally it's a red flag for self-inserty weirdness and consent matters. People might say, "It's just roleplay", but let me remind you that for years there was a book author going around trying to get someone to roleplay as a woman he was harassing online. You can draw to what ever conclusion you want with that. Just remember that writing shallow characters means you're going to have shallow engagements both IC and OOC. Go deeper than what they are and what they do -- this also goes for actual tropes too (like being a werewolf, or a vampire, or even witches working their magic). Give your characters their own voice. Use ideas from various shows, characters, or books -- just don't blatantly copy them. If you flesh things out, those who write shallow characters often back off because it intimidates them. They may also act all passive aggressive since you might be getting the attention they want, but that's their problem -- not yours. Remember -- roleplay is supposed to be fun. Don't let people walk all over you if you say no.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

VirtueNV -- A Review and News!

First, let's get the news out of the way because that one's easier -- Virtue seems to have closed. There wasn't much in the way of announcements. The only thing that seemed to tip me off was the IC group ejection, though this could be due to having group notices turned off so they may very well have put out a notice and I just didn't catch it. Anyway, let's move onto the review. VirtueNV was an urban supernatural sim that took place in the desert. The sim owner said that it's a town that's somehow built over Area51, but having been through the area more than once -- no, just no. Honestly, if they wouldn't have said that, it'd have made it easier to 'live and breathe' the lore. Anyway, the races were pretty standard. They did change their shifter role to be actual werewolves and removed the skinwalkers which were both nice to see in terms of growing from cultural appropriation. Even their IC witch shop prohibited the sale of items linked to cultural practices aside from white sage. We can't win them all, but it was refreshing in terms of BIPOC friendliness. They listened. However, you readers know me by now. You know instantly what I chose. Their spellcasters here were called Awoken and their system used the elemental system that was... Complicated. Things overlapped until they 'all of a sudden didn't', and things weren't written too clearly on what element could actually do what. We've seen this song and dance before and I explained in my post about elemental magic why it's inefficient and kills RP. They had a few others in there; containment which 'contains' and can also hide or shield things from other Awoken, and you also had enchanting which should honestly be a base ability for any witch. Same with potions, etc. It was just way too strict to function. Now the owner's defense on it, because it's been a topic of debate ever since I was part of it, says that the strictness around the system is to facilitate roleplay for other characters to 'learn' -- however there's not an A for effort. It still gives the illusion of progression and it cuts people off from a creative flow. Magic is an art and everyone's magic should speak differently, not just through their focus. Which we also need to abolish that trope too. A focus, while is a helpful tool -- it's more of a metaphor. Maybe I crave the deeper nuance to magic, but this is why I quickly got bored. The sim itself was rather well done though. You did feel like you were in the desert, though something to note here; there's not many shops that sell desert appropriate clothing. And watching vampires under their umbrellas basically killed my immersion. But other than that? It was really easy to navigate, very minimal lag, and the load in was a snap. The roleplay there was mid. Some of it was good, but there was a lot of it that was just bad. This was where our missing stair came from after all. It could have been better though. What would've made myself stick around more? Nuances of magic. My character was deeply interested in it, but the requirement of others for things that are utterly and mundanely simple even in traditional witchcraft IRL is just too strict. There's a way to still have players seek out groups to progress, but it wasn't going to happen with things being closed off -- especially when we talk of magical tropes and how they feed stories. Literally everyone and their mother had a Death spec because it sounded dark. But was it? Mmmm-not much. There's certainly a spooky element, sure. I'll give it that. But there's nothing about it that screamed 'black arts' or true necromancy. All in all though, I'm sad to see it go because the roleplay there at least was decent enough that I forgot about Unnatural for a time. At the same time, I really do hope that the sim owners recognize the failings of this one since they did have a supernatural college themed sim called Hawthorne University. Time will just have to tell.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

I'm Negative For a Reason

So I get how some could also see my posts either seem very harsh, or angsty on the surface. There's actually a really good reason for this. The biggest one is that urban supernatural roleplay in Second Life, and sometimes overall, has become so stagnant and increasingly frustrating over the lack of potential that most people just don't care. But I do. I know that I'm not the only one out there that cares too. "Why don't you open your own sim then" isn't really an answer to the problem. There are plenty of sims out there that could really be something if they just swapped some things around. They could even attract on-sim store vendors that could generate more revenue. Yet they don't. There used to be blogs back in the day that would praise what sims did right and would aim to hold sim owners accountable for what they did wrong. Now it all seems like it's mostly the latter that's really to write home about. Some may feel my posts are 'hit-pieces' and they're not. They're there because they should know better. Far too often people don't look at the mistakes of others, thus perpetuating some really glaringly obvious things that they just don't want to accept. Your magic elemental system? It's bad. If you're not a World of Darkness sim, why are you trying to be one? We've gone one for that already -- New Haven by Night. It's been there ever since I can remember. Is that one of my major gripes? Yep. Why? Because I can count on one hand how many sims don't use that kind of system. Unnatural? Still uses that kind of system albeit in a different fashion. Roanoke would be a wonderful place if not for the lack of activity and events. Sure we could log in there, but nobody wants to log into a dead sim. I could go on and on, but you get the point; it's EXHAUSTING that nearly every sim that pops up repeats the same mistakes. Either they're using systems that clearly don't generate roleplay (Vexford), they make it too complicated to really get into the nuance (VirtueNV), they appropriate (Vexford, Unnatural), or they harbor missing stairs as sub-staff instead of having a vetted system (Vexford). This is why I often use Discord as my main platform of roleplay because the sims more often than not have too many problems where I can feel safe, or enjoy myself, to tell stories. So if you're wondering why there's a lot of negativity in my posts -- it's literally because there's not much good out there. However, I do promise that I'll have more positive approaches to things like worldbuilding and the such so people can have something to work with. Those posts will come, but it's going to take some time. With the holidays ramping up, I might miss the daily post thing and that'll have to be what it'll be. At least now readers might understand why it's not butterflies and rainbows when it comes to my reviews and the 'what not to do' bits.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Vexford! Finally -- the review!

So this one's been a while in the making because I'm not sure how I wanted to do it. I don't know if there's going to be a part two and for transparency sake -- I did not roleplay there. I do have friends that did and rather than talk about what they went through, I'd rather stick to why I didn't step foot there once I was approved and dug a little deeper. Some on the sim team was familiar because of Crescent Valley (who took us Riverside Falls players after it closed), then they had Lakewood Pointe, and then it became Vexford. This is all since about 2021-ish, so my memory of those places are a little fuzzy. The admins are kagura.xevion (Shiggy), Mr Mercury (JT), Tshurii (Pikzie) and silensnoctua (Dante). Shiggy has been in all of the sims, JT I've seen at least twice along with Dante. So all in all, they've had at least three sims in two to three years, give or take a month. That's a lot of money and a lot of unstable uptimes. Firstly -- their races are very watered down and have been ever since Crescent Valley, but I won't get into all of them because there was just problems all around with balancing. Instead I'll just state that a lot of the races have been repeated and altered throughout the years with some minor adjustments. While they allowed demonic tropes this time -- they still wanted to shy away from things due to the potential of religious upset; more on that later. Of course, I chose their witches. It was a rehashing of the elemental system that often gives the illusion of nuance and balance when it just facilitates lazy roleplay. This time there was a bit of a twist. Instead of having a perk that would allow you to choose three elements like in their earlier sims, this time they had the "Maestro" system. Originally it was for witch leads, but then it was eventually changed to have Maestros be chosen by witch leads. There's a few problems with this. 1) They do not give an alternative since witch communities in sims get VERY cliquey.

2) The Maestro powers are very basic and almost reductive in a way, thus you're not really progressing anything that basic witches should and are able to do in more populated sims.

3) Because there isn't any real progression, what's the purpose of having Maestros at all? With those problems as well as them harboring a known missing stair/s*x pest in their witch leads, as well as allowing someone who is blatantly transphobic and homophobic be even close to the PD roles -- I was waiting for something else to come along. What solidified my not even stepping foot there was their herbal system. Before it was changed from a "seasonal" thing, some of the herbs had to be obtained through the black market. Yet anyone who's done any light reading, or delving, into herbalism and horticulture -- all of those herbs are not only not illegal, they're VERY easy to get a hold of. I guess Amazon is the black market giant in Vexford's lore. This wasn't the only thing in the section that bothered me though. A lot of what was on the 'black market' were things that just felt edgy to put there. That was until I got to the plants that have VERY large, impossible to ignore, Indigenous roots. Peyote? Legal. Everywhere. White Sage? Not only did they get the genus name wrong, the Indigenous have been telling white people for YEARS to stop using it and associating with it unethically due to over-harvesting. As such, it's become the focus of the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy as well as a few efforts to protect peyote. And again -- this can all be found on a very simple google search. After seeing that, I just couldn't bring myself to log into the sim. Not only was my information ignored by sim owners, they seemed to double down on all of the problems. I get that this is a platform where sim owners make the rules, but that does NOT absolve their problematic behaviors as well as harboring those with them. If a sim opens and they're running it? My advice is to avoid them. Even if they cleaned up the cultural appropriation, their sims don't run for very long which implies a very unstable core group who are incapable of generating long-standing content more than just a few short months. They also have a hidden sim that's still got the Crescent Valley image on it, which is where I imagine the 'invite-only' folks are going to land. It's all pretty sketchy if you ask me.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

How to Train A Villain

How to BE the villain!

Yesterday's post was a crash course about what not to do and sadly there's character limits in posts. SO! Here's a whole post about how I make my own! The first thing is to go through the More Worldbuilding post I made a while back. The character needs to have a premise and you need to understand how the character's impact will work. After that we can twist some things around. They can't just be the villain for the sake of being bad or evil. To truly be evil, you have to make the character live 'deliciously' -- to understand the stuff of TRUE nightmares.

So how do we get there? We start with their history. Tortured souls don't make good long-term villains unless you're going for tragedy. They're often short-lived and they can be shocking, but short-lived even when they make a return to their bad roots. Likewise if something turns the character down a sharp turn down Left Hand path lane? It's going to be short-lived. Don't get me wrong -- short-lived villains make for good storytelling and honestly some of my favorite villains were short-lived and make a return from time to time. They just aren't what people are always wanting to play. For a long term villain, their motives have to match their impact. Something more than just a singular event that happened to make them that way. It can be a catalyst, sure -- it's just not the force driving the character to 'be bad'. A good example of a truly delicious villain? Rose the Hat. The True Knot. "Eat well. Stay young. Live long." THAT is a motive. THAT's impact. It threatens as much as it persists. And there were others like her and them. The witch from Gretel and Hansel (2020), which GOD I love Alice Krige. Hell, even the Sanderson Sisters had their time doing similar -- and that was a DISNEY film. Same thing, different tone; all of them ate children. Now I'm not saying have your villain eat children, but the motive and the impacts are quite simple to understand to build or craft stories around. They each carry similar tropes, methodology, and even viciousness. Carefully crafted manipulation that doesn't make your character look like an asshole -- instead they're a welcoming figure even if they're a little mysterious and scary. That, my friends, is what makes long-lasting villains. They appear helpful, thoughtful even. They lure characters in, making them lower their defenses until the right moment -- and from that moment a delicious twist. Then you have the Magnetos -- the trope that society has failed them, or haven't treated them fairly (which is an understatement) and thus teaching them a lesson (according to the wiki). There's motive and purpose. At the same time, like his creator, I don't see him as a villain. There's much more nuance in characters like that and to be honest? They're VERY hard to pull off. But if you can -- I applaud your dedication and craft because there's so very few of them out there. Of course I'm watering it way, way down due to character limits and just generalizing a VERY vast subject -- but this post is meant to help generate ideas. Look at other villains. Find out what makes them iconic or beloved in their ruthless ways. Who knows, you might find a little muse in all of them.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Urban Supernatural Villains -- Are they dead?

In Second Life? Yes. Unless they're a narcissist IRL.

So I still intend to not name and shame on here -- I don't believe in that. But I do believe in using people as an example so buckle up and grab a drink cause it's storytime! So there was this person in a sim who kind of had a reputation behind the scenes of being 'painful' to work with. I got on their hitlist when my character was getting more attention from a character they were hyperfocusing. The person behind the character being hyperfocused had said to me that this person made them uncomfortable since that's all they seemed to want his character around for -- so they were very surprised that I just wanted to do story content. Anytime my character and this other person's character would text, this guy, we'll call them Ned, would immediately start having their character text who my character was texting. I was like, "Wow! That's strange", but kept to myself. But anytime I'd type in this discord's OOC chats and they were present? I'd get the most bitter, passive aggressive responses for no reason what so ever. It didn't end there though! Oh no. You see Ned loves alts. One of them happened to be a vampire that was supposedly inspired by Klaus Mikaelson -- which are BIG shoes to fill due to the Shakespearean rage behind him. Ned's vampire? Anything BUT Shakespearean. The sim had a rule for no fortunes exceeding three million, which Ned broke. Ned also intended to abuse Fleshcrafting and was even upset when the staff told him no. Several times in fact. Anyway, Ned's character was running around and somehow stumbled onto a scene that the character wouldn't have any knowledge of happening (metagaming) and interrupted someone else's very VALID reason for being there. While the person let it slide, they definitely felt like if they pushed back on that Ned would just godmod his way through it and there was an OOC audience there. After the scene was concluded, someone made the joke of wedding bells which immediately seemed to offend them -- because no one could have that character but them. But they could be with ALL the other characters if they wanted. YIKES. Eventually Ned used Fleshcrafting to change someone's appearance, further dampening the person with the valid reason of being there to dip out of the sim entirely. Ned would also try to claim things on the sim because that's 'obviously what the character would use' without even discussing it with admins based on the very public conversations that happened. Just a severe case of the me-me-me-me's and main character syndrome. But it still didn't end there! There was a gathering event where Ned's character swooped in -- trying to be the center of attention. People didn't pay them much mind, I even tried to give them a hook but they didn't bite. When my character started interacting with 'friends' of theirs, Ned had his character have them all take their leave which was oh so petty. But Christmas came early as I woke up to Ned's character being 'killed off'. Rumor in the grapevine says that they were forced by the staff to kill him off because of much of what was going on here. Even then, the damage was done enough for me to lose interest in the sim because the behavior was allowed to persist. Especially after Ned made another alt and tried having another passive aggressive swipe at me, but didn't even read what my character had said. When my obligations were over, I just quietly left. Others stopped playing it and it went from the top 10, to now being virtually dead. Fast forward to about October -- Ned is a faction 'lead' in another sim that recently closed and it was a big factor on me noping out. Especially since I had to go through them to progress? Nah. I later found out that several people dipped out of both because of Ned and I figure this should be the lesson; don't allow missing stairs persist in your platforms of any kind. They'll burn the house down while having a good time doing it.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Application Fatigue

What are they, why do they matter, and why does it matter to me?

Application systems are daunting, tedious, sometimes vaguely lore-dumping and yet all of that is necessary when you're running long term roleplays through a variety of platforms. It not only creates a fair environment, it creates a record of history -- localized, digital folklore within your group. But why should they matter to you? I've been doing a lot of thinking on it and after returning to Unnatural to see if anything has changed (spoiler alert, not much), I've ran into a lot of people who just seemed tired of the application process. Either wait times are too long, or they didn't get their fleshcrafting abusing super old, super rich, poor attempt of a Klaus Mikaelson vampire approved -- they usually fall in those two categories (time and denial). Unnatural has, by my count, six admins and without including those six and the bots -- there is a whopping 541 people in that discord server. While a good majority are offline, their traffic inworld seems to follow a similar trend with concurrent players in the 50's-70's most nights. While storytellers are all fine and well, they can't keep up with player to player issues and if at least HALF of that discord count is playing?

Seriously, that's not only running the risk of running things too thin when trying to keep your players happy -- it also runs you thin to make sure they're actively not breaking the veil mechanic there. Which happened several times in one night, in the same place, one right after the other. Application processes are necessary because anyone can just join Unnatural without reading the lore pages. They're not necessarily required, or forced to. One could say that the admins would boot those that were abusing things, but they really don't? I mean come on -- one admin literally left people hanging for over half an hour to watch an E3 panel when he could've just watched it later. I don't see them spending the time to get rid of them if they can't get rid of a conservative godmodder on the PD. That's another story. Nevermind, anyway -- The point is that applications serve as a roleplay 'CAPTCHA' if you will. They're there to ensure that you're intending to play what you sign up for, you've read your race's page, and that you understand where you're playing. I really feel like some applications are too lacking in that department too, but that's just me. The point is -- they're easy to send in and get approved. Most of the time if you're denied, it's usually due to either godmodding issues, or something wasn't clear. Unless they're the rare case of Vexford, generally explaining in further detail will give them a better idea. Really, they serve as a barrier to keep problems from arising. They deter those who don't want to put in the effort to engage in the lore and they also serve to keep a record of characters that are there as well as being a reminder of who's been there. So the next time when you're filling out your character application? In the words of Rose the Hat; Live long, eat well. Find those things in the setting that your character can engage with. See how you can make your mark where it's not just your memory, but one that's shared by many. Who knows? But it won't happen unless we go through those applications because you won't find that roleplay that is delicious in the scope of urban supernatural in a sim like Unnatural.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Folklore and Worldbuilding

Because I can't stop harping about it. Really -- it's hard to get past sometimes, primarily in Second Life where it's potential is unfortunately lacking. While moving to other platforms is easy, it doesn't necessarily fix the problem that could take root into other platforms. No, the best way to combat laziness is to just address it. So why should we use folklore in worldbuilding? When it comes to urban supernatural, it's a delicate balance. You don't what to JUST have the folklore do the talking, but at the same time too many changes may seem unnecessary, or weird. There was this one urban supernatural sim that had the entirety of magic rooted in just the Fae; which is not only unnecessary, it also either derails characters that have been part of the urban supernatural roleplay scene in Second Life and it derails potential character creativity. We also see this in 'elemental' magic sims too, all of which has now closed down aside from VirtueNV. In all of those examples, there's no nuance. There's no angle that a roleplayer can hook into, or make a true impact. Likewise with shifters and werewolves. Literally the only things that seem to be almost done right across multiple sims are Vampires and the Fae. Don't get me wrong, there's some problems within those two as well. It's just that they're usually more associated with their real-world folklore. If they mess that up, they REALLY did something wrong. It's okay to change minor things here and there to fit balance -- that's one thing. We don't want godmodders after all. However it's another when you water something down to basic parts that prevent a sense of familiarity and storytelling. That's what kills the immersion for folks, especially on Second Life.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Shifters and Lycanthropy!

They're more different than you think!

Lycanthropy has a lot of folklore surrounding how transformations work and all their bells and whistles, but I'm not going to talk about that. I'm here to talk about about lycanthropes and why they're not "shifters" in general because more often than not, the setting just gets it wrong. First, we have to identify what both of these terms mean. Lycanthrope(y) is pretty Greek in it's etymology; lucos for wolf, anthropos for man. While the shifting INTO a wolf and back again is part of Lycanthropy, this doesn't make shifters lycanthropes. Why is this? There's copious amounts of folklore on werewolves themselves, but shifters tend to be in a weird spot; sometimes for it's cultural associations and sometimes because pop culture kind of equated the two over the last couple of decades -- however the main distinction is that werewolves are generally associated with conditions like the full moons, emotions, or magic users causing the lycanthrope to shift. Shifters, in it's truest sense, is shifting AT will without any outside conditions causing it. "But why is this important?" Lycanthropes tend to be more bestial in appearance. We see this with the loup-garou, the wilkolak, and even the very mundane Ulfhednar who were berserkers that wore wolf-skins. These associations with bestial-like werewolves are ingrained in cultural history, folklore, and are very staple for the werewolf. So why do roleplay sims on Second Life lump shifters and werewolves together? To be honest, it boils down to simplicity and implementation. Far too often, sim owners will take the easier route if it means they don't have to put in more effort in their lore than they have to. We can see this in sims like Unnatural and Vexford, with the latter trying to throw shamanism into it further perpetuating problematic language and cultural appropriation. The fact of the matter is -- sim owners are very lazy and complacent with how they try to bridge the gap between the two. "But it's their sim! They can do it however they want!" Sure, by all means, -- BUT; They are not exempt from criticism. When they get something categorically wrong and whether it's by ignorance, laziness, or "to make everyone happy"; either cultures are appropriated or the folklore that made werewolves scary in the first place is watered down significantly. Seriously -- the only people who seem to play them now are the people who think that what they see on TV is how the folklore actually is, or they're a guy who thinks he's an 'alpha male' writer, who's also a cop. I literally haven't seen nuance to the contrary in Second Life as a whole. So remember -- if you're getting into Second Life roleplay and want to try urban supernatural themes? Try to avoid sims that can't make those distinctions between the two. If they can't? Chances are those sims are some visual fanfic headcanon depictions and should be avoided like the plague it is.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Magic, Culture, and Roleplay

Because not everything needs to be roleplayed.

So this is kind of a general tidbit on it's own when it comes to magical roleplay. I know there's a lot of people who would disagree with this, but if something is a closed culture, or practice? It does cause harm when certain stereotypes are perpetuated, which further the negative impacts that BIPOC people in those cultures face. Some my roll their eyes, balk, or stick their feet in the sand because it's fictional -- but nevertheless it still causes negative impact. There was someone who approached me for my knowledge of Vodou (not Louisiana Voodoo, but Haitian) and there's a lot of nuance that I won't go into. It's not about the nuance. When people roleplay it, it's often done through the Hollywood, negative stereotyped lens that it's "black magic" -- which then we get into racist tropes. They also use Louisiana Voodoo and Vodou interchangeably and while one came from the other, it's also not the same thing. It's just a lot and actual people belonging to those groups can explain it more succinctly than I can. But I asked what this person's interest in Vodou was in it and they said that because there was limited resources on it, they wanted more so they could roleplay it properly. He seemed irritated because people of the religion were just hoarding their knowledge and that's when I knew he was just looking at it as a trope. If he did any sort of digging, he'd know that this knowledge isn't mine to share. It's a CLOSED practice. You're not going to find what you're looking for out on the internet. All the nuances of Vodou, Voodoo, even Hoodoo -- they're all closed religions. When the request of information also be factually correct became more of a demand, I just let the conversation die down. There was nothing I could say to that person that would help him understand why it wasn't my knowledge to share, let alone cultural impact -- even if it was just roleplay. He wasn't mindful and seemed as if he was 'owed' that knowledge which demonstrates exactly why these religions are closed. These things are much, much more than just a religion, or tradition, or practice -- these things are cultures. They're almost always ingrained in their ethnic blood and the ones that aren't are usually derived from others that are. So before you jump in and make a character just for the sake of experiencing these closed things, just remember -- that impact, no matter how small or miniscule? It carries the weight, the horrors, and the trauma that has enveloped these cultures generationally for centuries.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Hunters; Why do so many get it wrong?

Hunters is a general trope of character that you'll sometimes meet, or play, in any urban supernatural setting. In Second Life, however -- they seem to think that 'hunters' are solely a human thing. While I get that they're trying to facilitate the balance of the mundane and the supernatural, they often employ supernatural effects to them. Vexford, for example, gave hunters the following; • The ability to live longer than ORDINARY humans. • The power to track their enemies using a part of their soul. • The ability to deduce the truth from someone, as well as identify 'trigger marks', SUPERNATURALLY. • The ability of photographic memory as well as being able to draw ANYTHING they've ever seen without having an artistic bone in their body. While this may seem fine on paper -- there was a few glaring issues. 1) Their "Normies" didn't have much in terms of balancing against Hunters. 2) Healers and Crafters really got only two benefits -- yet still nothing to balance against Hunters. Why on Earth would people be Healers and Crafters when you can use a system that's engineered to blatantly metagame, but with dice rolls? But, this isn't a review about Vexford. What it IS, however, is a common theme. This is in a lot of sims in some way, shape, or form. Not only that, Hunters in Second Life have long standing reputation of metagaming just as fleshcrafting vampires do with godmodding on the platform. What can be done differently? Think about what it means to be a Hunter. Most get the idea that they're just there to kill supernaturals without nuance -- and that's how they're normally portrayed. However there's been a few sims that have long since been shut down that had a better idea; They're there to keep the peace between mundane and supernatural. They're there to make sure that there's someone at the gate to stand guard who'd seek to do the mundane world harm. They don't kill without nuance and they investigate cases, sometimes hidden behind some kind of glamour like invisibility, or right out in broad daylight as a cop. It not only facilitates a means of immediate roleplay, but it ALSO facilitates future storytelling events that many could take part in. Honestly I haven't been in a sim that hasn't been able to keep themselves open, or active, long enough to learn from their mistakes and change it. Hunters deserve better. They can BE so much better.

[supernaturalworldsofsecondlife]

Demon-phobia

Because why not?

So before the admins of Vexford created it, they had Lakewood Pointe (again, reviews coming much later). A friend of mine applied to it as a Nightmare, using demonic tropes. However, in the application process, the admins removed those 'demonic tropes' because it could cause 'religious upset', so they wanted to avoid it. HOWEVER; In their races at the time, they included Succubi and Incubi, which are what? DEMONS. Now this isn't the first time I seen this group of admins state things very incorrectly. "My sim, my rules" is no excuse. Ignorance is no excuse. Using the whole "we want to avoid religious upset" while having LITERAL CHILDREN OF LILITH (depending on what folklore you go by) right there is a blatant contradiction of their own world building. In Vexford, they at least opened it up somewhat to "Infernals" (probably to directly compete with Unnatural), but were shying away from religious iconography because that's the only way they understand demons. Let me put it this way -- if you're worried about religious upset over both angels and demons, why have witches? Seriously -- there are things that were in Vexford that were not only culturally appropriated, they used the wrong species name for white sage which is a short google search away. Which, again, will be included in Vexford's review however that one's gonna take some tiiiiime. The point is, the tropes exist in urban supernatural for a reason. If people are having 'religious upset' over it -- why would they be in an urban SUPERNATURAL roleplay sim? Seriously. If they're the type that would complain about that? Then they'd complain about magic users, vampires, and the like that their source material vehemently condemns. If they're the type that abuses that trope, then they're not someone you want to keep around anyways. There's literally no excuse for the demon-phobia, while also having literal freaking species of demons in your lore. "It's not because it's not MY lore" is not an answer or a solution -- it's lazy worldbuilding. But then again, this admin staff has had three sims in three years and has utterly failed to meet the mark every single time. The only reason why Crescent Valley did well at first was because Riverside closed and they were recommended. I guess the joke's on me because after three years, they still haven't gotten a clue.