out of the blue, into the night

this week is finals week for me, so i haven't been on. i've been prepping by writing down notes and watching videos my teacher posted to better understand the material. i'd been on sl over the weekend, but once i needed to do my assignments i shifted my focus and hadn't logged on. today i get a ping while i'm writing down notes for math class. i finished jotting down an equation, then picked it up and read the screen. apparently hell froze over, as ezee was online. i wasn't interested in trying to confront him, as i'm currently in the mindset of m=x1 blahhhh so i was like "okay" but typed out a more coherent reply.

a notecard was waiting for me on sl, so after i got done with dance class mom swung me by taco bell then brought me home. i logged on to read it, and i wasn't in the least bit surprised. he hasn't changed a bit, made more promises that nobody believes in. io told him that i'm really angry at him, and she's not wrong. i have been really mad, lashing out here and there when it suits me. while i may have moved on, he keeps turning up like a bad habit. i thought io showed tremendous self restraint, and she had spitfire there to support her. they had my back, and though they fibbed a bit to show how much of an ass he's been, i think they were more honest than they realized.

io said i've been in chaos, and i think she's right. i've been wild, refusing any hand trying to tame me and absolutely refusing to submit to anyone. i've thought about bottoming to people, but my submission is locked away as securely as what's left of my icy black heart. ezee may have broken a part of me, but my hatred flows as deep as a river and my fury is like the goddess pele in all her might. i'll be fine eventually, i'm just learning once again to be a lonely thing, floating around the grid doing my own thing.

i find it funny that even though spitfire and io asked ezee over and over to give up the ldr group, he kept saying no because it had sentimental value to him. i've given up things when i couldn't lead them anymore, and yet he's not mature enough to do one little thing that will really give him peace. i got active again on vampirefreaks when a message popped up for me asking me to come back to a group i had taken over, so i've done so. i've been working on revitalizing it from the ground up, moving threads around and posting new things for members.

it makes me happy in a way to start bringing the group back from the dead, and it's also somewhat hilarious that ezee claims he's gonna do that, and yet we all expect him to be nothing but talk and just vanish into the night again. it's what he always does anyways, so we don't expect anything different from him at this point. i'm not going to back down as a mod in the group, even if he does show up.

while i may want nothing to do with him at this point, i can run the ldr group in my sleep better than he can, and i refuse to watch him run it into the ground. his incompetence will not stand, and i'll continue making sure that we keep the groups to the standards we set without him. after all, it's what i've been doing anyways in his months-long absence.

when he disappears again, i'll just keep on trucking. i've learned not to rely on him, and i'm not going back. even if he paid me a million lindens, i would not go back. he lost me a long time ago, and he doesn't even care. i've never been more than an afterthought to him, even though he claims he cares about me. io had to bring me and rayne up to him, because he never even asked. he doesn't care at all about us, his lost harem, he just pretends he does so he doesn't look bad. filthy liar.

the task

or, dear god why?

a popular item that people like to use to better understand people are writing tasks. you're given a prompt, and then a due date to respond to it. you know, just like homework. so. they do it to better grasp what makes you tick, why you think about certain things the way you do.

one problem. i hate them.

i didn't use to, the idea of doing something for redemption when i'd genuinely screwed up appealed to me. when it was used i felt a hell of a lot better afterwards, and i knew on the rare occasion when i fucked up so badly it would help me heal.

the problem with that is it immediately went south.

see, there was a day when i had been up all night and was online. i was told to go to sleep, or i'd be in trouble. so i logged off and went to bed. around eight hours later i woke up, and logged back on. the person who had told me to log off then decided i was in trouble for not going to bed, and assigned me lines. i didn't do them, because i hadn't done anything wrong. i had gotten eight hours of sleep, and they hadn't noticed. that wasn't my fault.

time passed. a few months i think. i got yelled at for never doing my punishment, so i angrily grabbed paper and wrote down ten lines. as each letter was put down i became more and more upset. why was i being punished when i had done nothing wrong? it was like my abusive grandma all over again, and a deep, smoldering anger grew inside me. when the lines were done i slammed down my pen, angrily uploaded the images, and then proceeded to fall apart when i was told "good girl" for finally doing it.

ever since that day i have absolutely hated doing writing tasks of any kind.

i don't do punishment dynamics, i never have.

the one time of redemption was something that i needed, but forcing it on me won't work. i'll simply walk away. you want to get to know my mind, just ask me. really. don't tell me to do stupid essays with a due date. i'm already doing that shit in school and i sure as hell won't do one that won't get me a grade. if you want to know my mind so badly then GET TO KNOW ME! there's not much i hide from people these days anymore, but if you just arbitrarily tell me to do x, y, and z by such and such date, you can bet your ass i'm not gonna do it, and until you ask me why i'm not going to explain the middle finger in front of your confused face. what works on one person doesn't necessarily work on another, and if you assume that, it's just really not going to work out.

another kicker: just because you're a safety net on my collar doesn't mean i submit to you. shocker. i know. and just because i express interest in something i may need doesn't mean i'm submitting to you either. it just means i'm bottoming to you for a while, and my submission isn't even close to being on the table. if you think bottoming is inherently submission, you would in fact be very, very wrong.

the irony here is you could argue that all the time i just spent on this blog post could have been used on the xyz thing i was told to do, but here's the thing: i chose to write this out of my own free will. this is my space, no one dictates what i write here. being told to do something else just isn't going to fly unless you're a professor at my college and i'm a student in one of your classes.

little lost kitty

"little lost kitty" are the tags i like to wear in second life. initially they simply amused me, but as ezee abandoned me and the rest of the harem, they become poignantly symbolic. i am a little lost thing, trying to find my way through a virtual world. my appearance is ever-changing based on my mood, (human, fae, elf, mermaid, angel, demon, animal, whatever tickles my fancy), but for the most part i am a tall, pale woman with midnight hair and pinky-violet eyes that i love to death. they were listed as "nebula" when i got them, (i think they were free as a group gift, i don't remember anymore) and i still get lost in their depths when i gaze into my avatar's face.

for the first part of my time on second life after i returned from my hiatus i had a fairly standard avatar and flexi hair, with a skin that has now long since been retired and goofy yellow eyes, but unless my appearance requires a change my eyes are always a nebula now. when i went mesh i was maitreya, but my head was still a standard little head with a shitty skin. i had mesh hair, mesh skin, mesh clothes and shoes, but i still had a fuck-tastic head and a face that only looks good in a 1999 video game with pointy madonna boobs and a penchant for cuccoos.

it annoyed me. i went on a hunt for a better skin, but one that looked similar to the one i had at the time so that i wouldn't lose my sense of self. i did find it after a few months of looking, but there was a problem. it was only for a mesh head, and those aren't cheap. so i saved up lindens. months and months of saving. going to a premium account helped with the weekly stipend, and eventually i had enough to buy a mesh head and the skin all at once. i spent four thousand linden that day. with trepidation i put on the new head, and rolled my eyes at the default skin, but then i applied the new skin i had just bought. it took a few moments for the omega to accept my command via clicking a box, but the head then turned red as it loaded. i zoomed in, holding my breath. as soon as it cleared, a better version of my old face stared back at me.

i was ecstatic. my face looked like an HD version of my old one, and it had dark brows that match my real life ones. it was also animated, so i played around with the menu watching the smoothness of the face responding to my clicks. makeup, ears, hair base, expressions, over and over i clicked and clicked and fell more and more in love with it. this was forever going to be my face now, i may wear other skins but i am never taking off this head.

this new look, new hair, new wardrobe, for me it was crucial in trying to repair my destroyed self esteem. being a standard avatar as long as i was, (about a year and a half i think) it lurked deep in my mind that maybe i was brushed aside for the latest harem girl was because she was mesh and i was not. more importantly, kitten is a creator. admittedly the very first time i laid eyes on her, i absolutely hated her. i don't remember what was going on that day, i just remember i was logged off on sl and jason, (or vemyr as i refer to him on sl) was sitting by the fire pit listening to her as she explained this alien avatar she was wearing that she had apparently made herself. i thought she looked like the worst of abominations, but i kept my mouth shut since jason had his mic on.

i hated the way she walked, the way she talked, and the way ezee was completely enamored with her. see, i hadn't been told that kitten was the new girl in our poly harem. io knew about me when i was introduced to ezee (she introduced me to him!) and later brought into the fold, but i had no idea kitten existed. what i do remember is a deep, burning envy as she stole all his attention away. i remember thinking "what about me? aren't i special?" as he cuddled her for hours while i sat helplessly on a log across from the fire, with io nearby and the other two girls who were on at the time relaxing and doing their own thing. to this day i don't know tarca (she-who-must-not-be-named, aka cunt face) and rayne's opinion on her, but i also don't really care.

what really sticks out in my memory, was when io whispered in my inbox that she had picked up on my despondent mood and was gonna let ezee have cuddle time with me since he was getting tired. ezee got up, and so did kitten. she kissed him goodbye and tped to where ever, (i think her skybox but idk) and then he stood there, alone. i felt an overwhelming need to run into his arms, but something made me hesitate. when i did, he left as well. surprised, i thought that maybe he had crashed so i pulled up the mini map to see if he had and then logged back in up in his skybox. instead i saw their dots together, way above me. my heart shattered into a million tiny pieces, and as i wept i became aware of a blistering hate that has never really gone away.

to say i loathe kitten is an understatement. every fiber of my being screamed at me to destroy her, but i didn't. i grew distant, a pixelized ghost as christmas neared. my black moods became infamous as i snapped and lashed out like a wild animal, and i didn't regret it one bit. when i found out that kitten had left the harem, i was glad. selfishly glad that she couldn't handle it and was now gone, and rayne and i (tarca was out of the picture at this point, btw fuck you tarca, fuck you with a lemon covered spiky broom) would get more time with him and io. i was wrong.

instead i was treated to months long fuckery that i'm not going to bother to get into, but basically as of december 2016 i left ezee in my heart, and july ish of this year i walked away physically. i still hate kitten and kinda hope she died in a ditch somewhere. i know, fucked up. i don't care. but what this whole debacle taught me is that dominants lie. dominants can't be trusted. and worse, i'm a fucking idiot when it comes to my boundaries. thankfully spending time at divine sadism has helped me to actually grow a spine, and to draw on my strength of steel to put men into their place. (divine sadism is a femdom sim based in female superiority.) it helped me realize where i went wrong when i tried being a domina to a submissive man in that brief relationship, and i learned heartache anew when a scum became dangerously close to my heart before his wife caught him and he had to leave second life for good.

i know that io and bryan and penalt and spitfire have all been worried about me. i know i'm not as vibrant as i used to be, that ezee's nonsense and jax's fuckery have damaged my heart (emotionally, not physically). i'm colder than i used to be, and i'm more like the shadows that i call home. grasping me is like grasping smoke, or a ghost. i'm there, but i'm an echo of what i used to be as a person. i'm lonely, i'm lost, i'm just floating around the grid trying to find a place to call home. when it gets bad enough i go to ymo to become the droid kitten, because it comforts me in a small way. i refuse to wear the droid helmet because i don't want to be a mindless drone, i still want to be who i am while still being droidkitten.exe sitting on a bench. io recently said that i need someone to fill my cup, and i both understand and am confused by this. what she meant is that i need a dominant, a male dominant, who knows my quirks and doesn't judge me for them. in real life, jason has everything down pat. on second life, i'm on my own and have been for nearly two years.

being alone has its pluses, i suppose. it means i can do whatever i want whenever i want, and spend linden or save it when i feel like it. it means i can star in pretty posters and fuck virtual porn stars without consequences.

it means i can be the co-head of a company that features my two besties.

it means i can grow as a DJ and maybe follow in io and spitfire's footsteps and go pro.

right now i have a glimmer of pride being the accidental poster-child of divine sadism as the resident DJ, and the glowing admiration of the crowds each month bring forth my vibrancy for that brief two hour period that i'm spinning the tunes. i just wish that there was more for me. as unity pointed out to me recently, all i've done is look back, and it's stalled me. i meant what i said back, i don't have anything to really look forward to. my future is as lonely as my present is, and that's not likely to change anytime soon. so i am a little lost kitty, trying not to drown in this turbulent sea as the void laughs at me and i try to take it the fuck out back.

the life and death of coyote in the kingdom of eelry

i know this post will be at odds with my other two posts, as this isn't an observation of the world i have made. rather, this is about a roleplaying character i'd sunk a great deal of time, virtual money, and effort into. the place where i had been going is shutting down to be rebuilt as something else, so i thought i'd like to share with you the story of my character, and where she was in the kingdom of eelry on second life. oh, and eelry was and always be amazing to me.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

coyote was a tall elf with pale skin, raven hair, and long pointed ears. her eyes were a beguiling shade of purple mixed with blue and touches of pink, and her smile was infectious. she had come to eelry after being stricken with wanderlust, though she couldn't remember why she was traveling in the first place. she had vague memories of a family that was no longer around, but that was all she had other than her first name. eelry had been a dark place as she entered the village, and her bare feet made no sound on the cobblestones as she explored the place that would ultimately become her new home. it wasn't too long before she encountered other people, making friends and enemies as she adjusted to her life as a citizen, and even attending the coronation of the new king and queen. it had been a joyous occasion to behold, and she was suitably impressed.

she felt safest in the forest, the only light place in a dark kingdom and so made her home there. she met a man named rhage krolmskull there, and soon found a calling to the druids who also made their home amongst the trees. she was happy here, and while she journeyed throughout the lands became quite good friends with clara johnstone, the mayor of eelry and frequent antagonizer of the royal couple who ruled with an iron fist and plotted in secret. she found out how clara had been brutally tortured to death then summarily revived by the evil king and queen, and decided she would find out just how they would bring eelry into a new future as a peaceful, unified kingdom.

the queen herself was a black dragon shaman, walking in darkness like her husband, a black paladin demon from another dimension who had come to the human plane to do the dirty work of his dark goddess. they did everything in their power to make clara seem like the crazy one, even swaying people over to their evil cause. coyote wasn't fooled though, and often put her foot in her mouth sassing the royals as they manipulated the people to their whims. she felt in her heart that clara was right about how bad they actually were, especially since they had set a plague upon the village, killing over half of the people in it, then summoning the bodies in an undead army so they could swoop in and save the day.

coyote found her new abilities as a fire druid in this time, and began toying with how to control the flames that lived in her soul while battling an insane forest guardian with the help of other druids who had come to the farm to talk to her about the fate of their missing druid king. ever since rhage had called himself king of the forest he had invoked the wrath of the king and queen, so obsidian had taken it upon herself to curse the forest in an attempt to bring him to heel; especially since the druids looked to him instead of her and her king parzival. unbeknownst to her rhage had used his lifeblood to tie himself to the forest, so her curse also affected him.

coyote and clara worked to undo the curse set on their home, and with the help of others at great cost managed to free rhage from obsidian's clutches and bring the forest back to life. this was short-lived as the queen managed to put a stronger curse on the forest again, so coyote offered her allegiance to the lady of the wood and patron goddess of clara, then used up everything she had to aid the mayor to undo the curse once and for all. in the meantime coyote had battled an insane dragon who was trying to destroy the farm the villagers used for food, so it nearly took her life to save the forest of eelry. it was worth it though, even though rhage vanished without a trace and the druids were without a leader.

clara stepped up in the interim to guide the druids until a new person stepped forward to become the leader, head of the clan and working with the others to broker peace. coyote was proud for her friend, but this was short lived as she was shortly murdered by the king for being a traitor to the crown. the loss of the one person coyote felt close to caused her to go insane as she mourned before the burnt skeleton that lay limply on the sacred altar, and she lost her very soul to madness.

reborn as a druid with no control over her fire abilities, coyote renamed herself trickster and made her way through the village with a mask carved in the shape of her namesake on her head, which hid her brilliantly amber eyes and baby fangs, and caused her to strongly resemble loki, her bond animal of the same species as her name. her laughter was strained, with a ruined throat from screaming she made a new name for herself as a force to be reckoned with.

since the king had interrogated her before her subsequent insanity and then gone missing after killing clara, queen obsidian sought her out to see if she was responsible. of course, when the queen finally found the mad elf it was quite a funny moment, the queen was normally a bit of a bitch but was rendered speechless at the word salads that poured from coyote's mouth. she even wondered if the elf was okay, which prompted coyote to nearly drown herself laughing.

it wasn't too hard to make a simple potion that rendered coyote temporarily sane for obsidian to question her, and from there she learned that clara had met her end at the hands of the king, and that coyote felt responsible for her death. without mincing her words obsidian told coyote it wasn't her fault, clara had already betrayed the kingdom and she'd finally racked up enough charges to be put to death. since parzival had been alive last time coyote had seen him, she was let go. unfortunately her madness remained since she had killed an innocent animal in her grief, so once the potion wore off she was insane again.

many people found her both intimidating and amusing, so since coyote's mischief was harmless she was left alone for the most part. when the angel came to eelry, some saw her as clara reborn, but coyote saw her as a bitch with wings and tried to set her on fire. loki intervened and kept her from causing calamity, but the angel didn't care one way or the other and simply went around the kingdom pissing off everyone she encountered. coyote tried to find meaning in her madness, and had periods of lucidity where she made sense and was able to comprehend her environment. she even joined several people on a quest to elmandria, the ruins of an old kingdom that the king and queen had ruled over a thousand years prior.

after the return to eelry the queen was murdered by assassins sent by the angel, and since she had completed the dragon bond with her king, he too fell dead by their hand. the queen was reborn as a vengeful spirit, and while parzival was in hell made a new pact with his dark goddess and was granted return to the living. obsidian was reborn in her original body as an undead shaman, with greater powers than before and a shorter temper. a mage known as ilaria bane took over as regent as she was tasked with finding out who killed the king and queen, but the closest she had come was finding the charred bodies of the assassins. as she tried to find out the source of the attacks, more chaos fell upon the kingdom.

the great white dragon, burdened with a legion of souls and mad with pain and fear from her broken gem on her forehead, had burrowed into the mountain housing the mines and causing a great many small earthquakes to shake the kingdom of eelry. the quakes upset several items in obsidian's camp, shattering two bottles housing violent spirits and setting them lose to wreak havoc. since she was still known as dead to her people, obsidian decided to see how her regent would handle it while she sought out her reborn king and tried to figure out how to free her daughter from a powerful spell performed by an unknown entity at the moment of parzival's death.

coyote ran into the first one, a former jester who loved to entertain and grew angry when the baker teresa decided to try and hit him with a frying pan. she found it hysterically funny as the spirit ran off to hide in the out house, and hoped to run into him again and maybe unintentionally bring the spirit peace and allow it to cross over to the other side. she was not so lucky when she ran into the second one in front of the castle as she made her way towards the dark forest.

this one was a being filled with rage and quick to anger, and coyote accidentally pissed it off. as it screamed into the air with supernatural force beyond human reckoning, blood spilled from every orifice, her eardrums ruptured, and though she screamed in agony no one was near to help. as she staggered and fell down the castle steps, her heart exploded in her chest and coyote quietly died staring at the heavens with a smile on her face and a chuckle on her lips. she died as she was born in the kingdom, completely alone with no one who knew or cared for her.

the regent was informed of a mysterious death by the wife of a survivor who had gone deaf and also suffered the great quantity of bleeding, but none of them knew that within the pouch on coyote's body was a key to restoring the great white dragons sanity: a piece of the broken gem.

mermaids and events

so this is something that's been bothering me. i went to the yearly pirate event that happens locally, and i went as a mermaid. i had my tail on, some pearl necklaces, a shell headband, a necklace headpiece, rhinestones on my face, the whole shebang. i thought i looked like a cool mermaid, and i got a lot of positive response from it. lots of kids shouted "mermaid!" and i'd wave and say hello, they'd come talk to me and i'd chat with them in character, and i even handed out big beads as 'treasure' and some beads from walmart i claimed were 'pearls' i found in the ocean. i tried to ensure that i alternated who got what, and i didn't pick which gender got what. for the most part everything was going great, everyone was happy to see me and i even posed for some photos. i was having a good time, families were having good times, it was all gravy.

except for one particular moment that stands out in my mind as one of the more fucked up things i've encountered in a while.

at some point my partner and i got hungry, so we decided to head into the alley that had various food vendors to get something to eat. it was pretty hot in the sun, even with my parasol, so i was parked alongside the food truck in the shade so i could be comfortable. while i was relaxing there, spraying myself with the water bottle on occasion or adjusting my fluke so my feet didn't fall asleep, i was spotted by two young girls. hearing them talk i heard that the girls were three and four years old, respectively. as soon as they saw me, they went, "a mermaid!" "look mommy, a mermaid!" and so i smiled and waved even though i wasn't up for being in character at that moment because i was waiting for my lunch.

and then, the unthinkable happened. the mom looked up, saw me, then bent her head down to the kids and said, and i quote, "that's not a mermaid. that's just someone dressed as a mermaid." i was completely floored. i mean, yes, technically she was right, but who the hell says that to children not even old enough to attend school?! i watched their faces as those words sunk in, and they went from happy to absolutely devastated. i had no idea what to do, or how to react to that. i had pulled some beads out for them, but i put them back into the bag because it was obvious i wasn't going to be able to give it to them.

i watched, at an utter loss, to see what the kids were going to do next. one of them piped up and asked me how i turned into a mermaid. you know, kid logic. her little brain turned "she's dressed like a mermaid" into "turned into a mermaid" which was very sweet. since i wasn't actually sure what she had asked me since i was near the motor on the truck i repeated her words, and her smiling face nodded which assured me that i had heard her correctly. so i replied, "well, a pirate did it!"to which she turned and said, "mom! a pirate!" and the mom actually ignored her. she did not care that a pirate had turned someone into a mermaid, and was more focused on her smart phone than her environment.

i was flabbergasted, to say the least. and then, when i didn't think it could get any worse, it did.

after the lady and her girl friend got their food, they happened to walk past me in my wagon. the girls tried to wave and approach me, and the mom grabbed them and pulled them away as they left.

i had no idea what to do, but i was so shocked i forgot to look happy for the other kids in the alley eating lunch. when my brain kicked back into gear i resumed my expression, but that bothered the hell out of me. why would you take your kids to a pirate event if you're going to tell your kids that all of it is made up, essentially make-believe? crushing their innocence isn't going to help them become better people, and will make them incredibly jaded before they even hit puberty.

the only thing that put a genuine smile back on my face was the little girl who asked me if i was ariel's cousin. since most little kids have seen the little mermaid i was anticipating something like this, so i replied that i was and that i would say hi to her for the child. the happiness on her face completely made my day, and i hope i made hers as well.

but this doesn't stop the fact that apparently there are parents out there who will tell their children these sorts of things without any regard to the consequences. i almost wonder if she's the same type of person who will take their kids to disneyland, then proceed to tell them that none of it is real. it's soul-crushing to a child, and i cannot fathom why she bothered bringing her kids at all if she was just going to hurt them emotionally.

tail opinions

i have a lot of time on my hands, so i've started watching a lot of youtube videos. mostly of channels here and there, on occasion a random suggestion that's popped up on my list. so with that said, i began to explore, do a little research, and have formed opinions on products. of course, i have basically no idea what i'm talking about, so if this post screams "you have absolutely no idea how this works!" you would be correct and should probably stop reading before my words cause a rage-induced aneurysm. today's opinion is on fabric tails.

why, you ask? well, because the thoughts have been tumbling around in my mind a lot and might as well start hitting keys until they become words on a page.

to start: yes, i do in fact own my own fabric mermaid tail. just the one, i'm very fond of it and would like to be able to test it out in the water after i get more physically fit and regain my strength and stamina in the water.

now that that's out of the way, let's get down to my observations and opinions. now, i will admit here i am certain i am biased against a particular brand, and i will also explain why. please note that while my words  may will become scathing, i will add positivity. okay?

anyways, let's get down to brass tacks.

in my quest to own a mermaid tail, i stumbled across this site that makes tails here in the usa. intrigued, i checked out the website and got click happy. i was in love! the patterns were gorgeous, and there were so many options. i had to have one. the price initially gave me pause, but then i noticed that there was a sale going on, and it was cheaper than the original listing. after not-quite-begging, i managed to get my hands on a beautiful tail for my birthday. a short while later i realized i needed a monofin, both so the tail didn't look so ridiculously floppy, and the fact that i wanted to swim in it. happy as a clam i ordered a monofin from the same site i got my tail from, and now i have an amazing tail currently resting on my dresser until there's a time to wear it. (side note: i've worn it in public once at an event, but i have yet to test it out in the water.)

sometime after i had my tail and before i had my monofin, another site that makes tails caught my attention. they're pretty popular, so i decided to look around their website and see if maybe i wanted to branch out into their collection. right away as the page loaded, i was assaulted by a bright, chaotic theme that seemed tailored for kids. confused, i managed to click around until i navigated to the right section. all the tails looked... weird. not really tail-like at all, more like a tube with a half-assed fluke at the end. the patterns seemed nice, but the names of the colors threw me off. why were there person names with these shades of purple, orange, red, and yellow? that question was quickly answered when i clicked around some more. it would seem that this site not only caters to kids, but has an entire line of comics, comic books, and freaking barbie dolls of some characters they made up. that's why the tails have people names attached to them, it's the tails the characters are wearing. i thought that was odd, but hey if you wanna market the shit out of an original thing you came up with, you do you boo boo.

then i saw the prices. why, those are right up my alley! so what's the catch? no catch, this site claims. just "quality tails for affordable prices." call me skeptical, but if it seems too good to be true, it usually is. apparently they made their own monofin too, but i'm getting a little ahead of myself here.

cheap tails that look nice underwater! yay!

there's gotta be a catch. there's always a freaking catch. so, with that in mind, i began hunting youtube. i didn't have much luck at first, because typing in "mermaid" or "mermaid tail" will get you a ton of channels about kids and teens pretending to be mermaids or doing outrageously silly mermaid stories. cute, but not what i was after. so then after months of periodic net diving (heh), i found a channel that talks about and reviews tails. lo and behold, she had one of the tails from this site. she seemed super excited about it, and i clicked on her first swim video. right away i noticed two things: the fabric is so thin that in the water it's transparent, and the monofin is crap.

now, there's nothing else i could initially observe wrong about this tail aside from those two things, but i'm a picky person and those right there were a deal breaker for me. i'm incredibly shy about my body, so swimming in a pool with a see-through fabric tail was just not gonna cut it for me. but now i know why they're so cheap; it's because the fabric is poor quality and basically turns into a wet white t-shirt. awesome.

interestingly, the tail that i have, it's made out of a thicker swimsuit fabric and when i have it on it's noticeably a different sensation. my bikini feels like it's made from a thick fabric, and my tail is about the same. a quick jaunt to youtube sort of confirms that it remains opaque underwater, but since that's basically confirmation bias i'm ignoring it. however, in perusing the review channel i did notice one thing: every single fabric tail she has, which are from several different websites at different costs, all have the same issue: they go transparent underwater. so then i have to sit there and go, "is it truly confirmation bias if the issue seems to go across several different brands?" i'm still leaning towards yes, since she doesn't own a tail from the site i got mine from, and basically poo-pooed it without testing it in one of her older videos. although i find it mildly interesting that the site she raves about a lot is the site i am completely against. hooray for opinions, right?

now, on to the monofins.

the ones marketed for the cheap thin  awful kids brand tail were their own design that they apparently patented. they explained it was basically plastic with foam covering with foot holes. wat

and somehow these pieces of crap monofins were "better" than the competition. just, what? i can't even. i mean for real, they took some plastic, covered it in some sketchy fabric, cut in some foot holes, and put socks in them and said go apeshit. now, this is where my bias against this brand is showing the most, because i cannot fathom how the hell that is going to work. (spoiler: it doesn't.) i managed to sit through about ten to fifteen different videos of this brand's tails in action in different pools/lagoons/hot tubs/rivers/lakes/what have you and observed that everyone wearing them had to severely compensate for the monofin by putting more power into their dolphin kick. (the dolphin kick is the actual name of the mermaid style swimming people do.) i also noticed that the plastic is flimsy as shit and pretty much negates the buildup from the dolphin kick and means you have to become an undulating ribbon if you want to get anywhere underwater.

the monofin i have is from a reputable brand, which can be found online and got a shout-out from a few pro mermaids on youtube. (woo!) it's bigger than the plastic contraption, shaped like an actual fluke, and contains a strap to hold your feet in to it without any chafing or painful rubbing. watching videos of mermaids/mermen wearing this fin, it seemed obvious to me which one was the better choice. they even come in cool colors, and i opted for the pink and purple one as i thought it was cuter than the blue one. it held up well with the buildup from the dolphin kick, and gave a decent boost to the speed of the swimmer and looked very nice.

so, with all that said, my final thought is this: if you're looking for cheap, easy to use, and great for kids, then this super popular brand will work for you. if you're incredibly picky like i am, take the time to look around and see what else is out there. and remember, money talks. if it's more expensive, it's probably better quality.