a black heart breaks

 let me tell you a story from back in 2015. when i met a man named vhalence valinos. that's me in my original standard avi, sharing drinks in a hot tub at black beach. he was caught in a love triangle with a woman named dadga and her other lover, asche. i ended up keeping him company since dadga was too busy yo-yoing back and forth, which meant we got to know each other.

 we had a lot of chemistry between us, and after hours and hours of talking, we decided to become a couple after dadga chose to be with asche. she lamented that i had stolen him away from her, but i pointed out that wasn't possible since she spent all of her time with asche and ignored vhalence entirely. he left on his own accord, for me because we had so much in common.

 so over a couple weeks we got closer and closer together. it was frightening, but also intoxicating. i'm not sure if i had ever fallen for someone so hard, so fast before. it was like a drug, what i know now is called NRE or new relationship energy.

 we became inseparable, twin shadows that felt each other's pain and i helped him get over dadga's betrayal. hours and hours of conversations went on between us, and i was glowing with our newfound love. i was complete, or so i thought.

 i brought him to a steampunk party to meet io and ezee, who at the time were my sl parents. we laughed and made jokes over me introducing the boyfriend, and i even won the contest that day for best in steampunk attire.

 then, we found this beautiful romantic sim where he proposed to me. yeah, three weeks is alarmingly fast anywhere else, but on second life that's par for the course. what i didn't realize is that a whirlwind relationship is doomed to fail just as fast.

 i didn't notice it at fast, the way he started to become distant with me.

 i started to think something was wrong, but i didn't know what. i just knew that something was different.

 he was pulling away from me.

 this is the last photo i took of us together, before our breakup. i am poly, and he is not. he was fine with it in theory, but when it came down to the practice of it, he wasn't okay and so we had to end. i sent him the sl "divorce papers" that removed him from my profile slot, and wished him the best.

i then took this photo a few days later, because i was now alone.

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i visited the sim where my life had changed last year. it's mostly the same, but the spot where he had proposed is gone now, and i had to use the old photo and compare it with what the sim looks like now to find it. vhalence and i haven't spoken in what will be three years this year, and i guess i'm still hurting because of him. he was my first love in sl, and he broke my heart so completely that i'm still aching inside.

last july i met a man, viktor arnbjorn. we ended up talking, all day and all night. there was something there, and i dared to hope. maybe i could finally put vhalence behind me and stop being haunted by his memory. i helped him with a messy rl breakup, and was there to pick up the pieces. while our avatars innocently danced at club limelight, we became intimate in our inboxes.

two days later he meets aya moon.

two weeks later she's his girlfriend.

july 21st, 2017 he proposes to her.

and i.. was crushed.

i was stupid enough to fall head over heels for him, and he repaid me by getting with someone else. we hadn't talked about dating, but the way our conversations had been going, i assumed it was on the table. i was brought to meet her in august, but my heart shattered more with every moment i was in their presence, and i couldn't help but flee the sim we were on.

five months go by, and i hadn't heard from him. i assumed he had been so happy with his fiance he'd forgotten i existed, even though we had spoken on discord a few times. turned out they'd been having problems, and then he'd been in an accident bad enough that he's been in physical therapy. she had pulled away from him, gone so distant that when he finally got in her face she broke up with him, and hadn't been online.

when i saw him log on, i immediately imed him overwhelmed with joy. i found out about the above, and we spent more hours over a few days talking. i was happy, he seemed like he was happy. i thought maybe we could have another chance because aya was no longer in the picture. i was a fool.

i helped him support his second life mom peaches when she had a double crisis of her avatar and account getting hacked. on saturday i asked about her, he didn't say much. on sunday he said peaches was doing okay, but our conversation kind of died and i thought it was because his knee was bothering him from overdoing it in his exercising. i ended up sick and haven't been online until today, 1/30/18.

i found out today that viktor got back together with aya on sunday, and their engagement is back on.


i am a fool.

sing like there's nobody listening

for the last few weeks, my buddy penalt and i have been hanging around second life, being pals and playing around.

this shot was taken around christmas time, when i was just relaxing at my favorite sim and pen was resting in his default spot by my feet. neither of us is sure when it happened exactly, but somehow organically a relaxed d/s relationship grew between us, so now on sl i'm the owner, and he's the subby pony. now i know some people are either clutching their pearls or wondering just exactly how our thing works. the kicker is, we're not sexual. at all. we are strictly platonic and we like it that way, though in theory if something develops we're both willing to see where that goes. but in the interim, we are friends who happen to be in d/s and we goof off and have fun.

 this was closer to christmas itself, and he was showing this beautiful sim that was modeled after greenland. unfortunately it's closed now, but it was such a magical place that felt very peaceful.

 this was taken a couple days ago in a horse sim, i'm the dark one on the left and a draft horse named chaos is on the right. we were joking about our sizes, as i thought i was a big horse until chaos came over to hang out. since pen is under four feet tall, that made him ridiculously tiny in comparison, lol

and this one was taken today, 1/25/18 as we just chill(ed) in his little stable area just talking about things. we're not a 24/7 thing, so here i am free to be a wild mare, and he is free to just be a cute little pony. he wears his bridle at all times should i choose to take his reins, but he also trusts that if i do, i have a reason. when we are not at my favorite sim we are equals, and though he bows to me, i don't think of him as lesser in any way. he's "my little pony" and while i wasn't expecting it, i am fond of him.

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remember how i wrote about ezee here?: http://talesoflifeobservations.blogspot.com/2017/11/out-of-blue-into-night.html

well he resurfaced again, this time to me directly. he did his usual thing of trying to be his best, all charming and sorry and hoping things will be all better. i gave a british response: cool, polite, and not very telling of my true emotions. he begged for my forgiveness, but i didn't give it. i know better, despite how persuasive he was and how he tried so very hard to make me come right on back to him. he's a snake in the grass, and a damn good one, but with the help of friends and therapy, i know to stay distant and stand my ground against him.

i beat him with kindness, i nominated two people to run his group, and based on my word he made them the new staff. of course, i am also training this new staff to run the place based on the standards io, spitfire and i had had, so it's running more smoothly again and there won't be anymore hiccups.

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i also had the absolute pleasure of performing with the purple man group, i was a drummer for their charity concert in december to raise money for cancer, and then earlier this month i joined them again for the whip radio anniversary party.

 that's me, on the blue drums.

 it was a blast! we didn't get any video footage of this concert since it was shorter this time around, but i would still do it again, any time of the week because it was just such a surreal experience. i'd always wanted to see a blue man group performance, and now with the purple man group i can actually be on stage, performing the songs and bringing joy to people. it's a feeling i will never forget for as long as i live.

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lately i have found myself doing something i haven't done since i was a patron of the grinders karaoke club back in 2015 in my first days of second life: singing. it sort of happened spur-of-the-moment, but now people beg to hear my voice. it's both intimidating and flattering, i suppose. when i sang at grinders i was very nervous, but that went away when i remembered there were just avatars sitting there listening to me, and while i had a crappy little mic and no headset, i think i did okay. when i came back from my four month hiatus, grinders was gone. there was an empty plot where the club once stood, and to this day while the group still exists, there is no knowing if and when it will ever come back.

i sang very briefly once at a club to an audience of three, but i was too nervous and couldn't enjoy myself. it was a blip in my radar, not something to be repeated. a rare occurrence. some months later i sang one song to one person, but i didn't think that would happen again either.

now here i am wanting to sing for people, to share the songs i'm in love with and sharing them with my voice. it's very strange, and i don't know why i'm doing it, but i don't want to stop either.

avatar upgrades

so over time on second life, my appearance has changed. initially i had the default standard avatar that i had signed up with, but i was given a new shape, a new skin, and clothes to get me by as a more customized appearance. with an animation over-rider to make her move about and seem more natural, i fell in love in a way.

i collected hairs and outfits, and slowly over the course of a year i started growing dissatisfied with my avatar. with the ever updating firestorm viewers with nicer and nicer graphics, my avatar started looking like something from a 1990s video game. it was awful! so i saved up my lindens while buying little items until i could get a mesh body. maitreya, to be exact, since i didn't know about the other ones at the time, but was the one i liked best. so now i had a standard head and a beautiful body. i was okay with this, for a time. in fact i went into greater detail here: http://talesoflifeobservations.blogspot.com/2017/11/little-lost-kitty.html

but after a while it looked ridiculous. so i saved and saved, until i had enough lindens to buy a head, with a skin that was pretty close to the original one that i had gotten very attached to. so, after spending three thousand on a head, and a thousand on a skin, i had upgraded once again.

there are so many more photos with this new head, i was overjoyed. i didn't think i needed to keep changing myself, i was content. i loved the different makeups, the outfits, the hair. it was perfect, in a way. i love the shit out of how bright my eyes look, and it amuses me to no end that in every photo, it looks like i'm smirking.

i decided to go looking at the LAQ store on a whim recently, since they actually had one and since that was the kind of head i had, i wandered around looking at makeup, skins, and the new super expensive bento heads. then something caught my eye. there was a crowd of people clustered around one of the boards, and as i paused to grab a demo (that i threw away after trying on because it was awful), i decided to cam over and find out why.

there was a sale going on, and instead of 5,000 linden for a bento head, it was 500. needless to say i didn't bother with a demo, i bought the freaking thing.

i'm still toying with the appearance, but i kind of like it. there are things that i prefer with the other mesh head, but this one has better quality animations built into it and the eye shadow looks superb on it.

so now i am version 4.0 with a bento head, bento hands, and a maitreya mesh body.

all through the night... all through the day, i'll hear you pray

disclaimer: the title of this blog is a line from Deep Love: A Ghostly Rock Opera

a lot has happened within the last few weeks. most it was covered by io and spitfire, but now comes the time for me to put in my eighty-two cents. first and foremost, i did end up choosing my electricity bill over my internet bill, so for the interim i am sans wifi until i can pay it and get it back. i've just been waiting for my money to kick in so i can catch up, and in the mean time i've been going to my mom's house to log in to second life.

the day after christmas i took the bus over to my mom's house, and did my after christmas roaring twenties party at cfnm mansion. it went really well, had a contest to giveaway a gift card that i didn't want, and my new headphones worked flawlessly. i'm still working out the mic, but i think i'm louder than i used to be as i push the line forward until i can just barely see the actual mic portion of it in my peripheral vision by my lips. once i figure out a sweet spot for it to sit, i'm gonna keep it there. my husband made a post on facebook and tagged me in it, informing the masses our internet is down for a little while.

apparently that caused some people to freak out. ironically, they were freaked out thinking i was freaked out. contrary to their beliefs i was not, i wasn't worried because my mom lives about a mile down the road from me and it isn't hard to get to her house. i spent wednesday, thursday, and friday offline, getting ready for my double shift and looking forward to it. i hadn't logged on to my facebook, it didn't occur to me that i was being left messages because i assumed people would wait until i had stable net again.

so i didn't know my shifts had been taken from me until i logged on a half hour before the divine sadism party after riding my bike to mom's house. needless to say, i was pissed. i was so angry i did a complete 180 into crying, because it was my shift dammit! i got my shit together, and my rage burned over. i had every intention of packing up my shit and going back home when tanarra popped into my inbox. she asked me to stick around for the party, since i had told everyone i was going to do it, and while apparently the other divines think i pulled a miracle out of my ass, i merely activated plan b. my anger was white hot.

tanarra apologized profusely and gave me my pay, since i had shown up before it was time with a set ready to go, and suddenly had nothing to do.

i also found out that on wednesday bryan and cooper had been informed of my situation, and my shift at old guard had also been taken from me.

i ripped penalt a new asshole, vented like crazy, then spent 90% of the two hours at divine sadism on facebook because i didn't care if i paid any attention.

as io has said, yes, she has my back. she and i are backups to each other, but she missed a crucial point.

when i need a backup, i say so. i hadn't intended to tell anyone about my lost net because it was going to be for about two weeks at the most, so i didn't think it was a big deal as i could hop over to mom's house (which made her happy because we don't visit enough) and do my job. i didn't need the backup, because i still had it under control. when i need her to step in, at the very latest i tell her three hours before my shift. i normally tell her days or even weeks in advance if i'm going to be gone during work.

so while she does feel awful for stepping in on my behalf, i do want it known that had i asked her to cover my shifts, she would have been golden. but i didn't ask because a mile long bike ride isn't that bad of a distance when i'm not riding the bus, and mom often drives me in her car anyways. it was actually a win-win because mom gets to chat with me and watch me work, and i get my husband out of my hair so he can socialize with the other people in the household.

the problem here is that there was an assumption of how i was reacting to not having internet. am i bored out of my mind? hell yes. but it's not the end of the world and since mom no longer lives in the next city over i wasn't worried. i knew i could still do my job. now that i've settled down temper wise, i do appreciate what she did for me, even though it wasn't needed nor wanted at the time.

the last time i had her tag in was then i was en route to the hospital, messaged her about three hours before my shift letting her know i was going off to the er in pain, and that i was tagging out. i kept her updated on what was going on while i was being poked, prodded, and ultimately diagnosed and sent on my way home with a prescription to fix me up, and she had my shift either taken over or cancelled, i don't remember. that is something that i needed her for, and she stepped up.

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spitfire finally got off her butt and proposed to io, as i'd been bugging them to partner up since around thanksgiving. i got the hint about it when i saw an email pop up from linden labs informing me of a "divorce" and knew she'd finally bucked up and asked for io's hand. there was a blurb about it on discord, but i mostly ignored it as, shocker, i didn't care. i do actually care and i'm very happy for them, just at that exact second i was in a mindset of "fuck everyone and everything, i'm busy" so it didn't really register with me.

io did check in with me on discord, where she also asked me about blog posts. i hadn't saved the bookmarks so i informed her i had not read them. while catching up, i noticed a current theme about me. mostly a "how does coyote feel?" "would she be okay with this?" what ifs plagued both io and spitfire. i had already given consent to their partnering, which meant being unpartnered. that didn't bother me one bit, in fact when i saw her new name in the divorce email i said "finally!" out loud because it meant they could really be together as a couple in a poly relationship.

io touched on fearing she's abandoning me in her quest of newfound happiness. she's not. just because my name will no longer be in that silly little slot on her profile, doesn't mean i'm gone. i'm still her waifu, her silly coyote. the only thing that's changed is spitfire is healing her, instead of her ping-ponging over second life with no one to rear her in.

i'm honestly hoping there's a wedding ceremony, she needs one. plus spitfire will look totally awesome in a pink wedding dress, pink veil, flowers, and shoes. somehow a riot of pink looks good on her, when it would look silly on anyone else. i actually have a pink formal dress lurking in my inventory should she decide on a pink theme, and i have a location for a store in my place menu where you can get locations, and i happen to know that one of them has a big hall with pink roses.

am i sad at all? nonsense. i feel relief and joy that io and spitfire are getting closer, because their love is the sunshine that pierces the gloom. spitfire is the best person for her, that shithead ezee did nothing more than tear her down and burn her out. i'll be fine, like i have been since i walked away. i'm not looking for anything right now, i'm forging my own path while stumbling around second life.

so stop worrying about me dammit, you two hopefully have a wedding to plan.