xeriko's attic

Looking the Second Life metaverse through the eyes of reality

Live at the swamp

About a week and a half ago I decided to “downgrade” my land possessions to a single contiguous plot, as a “strategy” to get rid of several prim farms I’ve been cultivating for several months. Being a hardcore prim gobbler, that only spelled trouble. I tried to convince myself that working with fewer prims would be a new challenge, but that argument was no help at all. So to force myself to carry out the mission, I put the prim farms up for sale. Surprisingly, the largest of them sold in less than five hours, which meant I had to take back my belongings before I fully realized it.

Once that parcel was gone, I stripped my land of everything and clicked “Edit Terrain”. I gleefully spent the rest of the day terraforming the plot… No, no, no. Not smoothing, lowering or raising dirt, but shaping  and reshaping until both my white and grey matters were burnt out. At about 2:00 a.m. TMT (that is Typist Mean Time), what started as a merry adventure turned out pretty sour. I was so exhausted of having done nothing that out of frustration I decided to revert the land.

“You did what? OMFG!”

I shouldn’t have done that, I know, but I thought that it would also reset my brain (what else can you think when it’s 2 a.m. and all you want to do is go to bed asap?). Actually, it only created chaos. Not only was I in front of a flat free floating islet, but confronted by a steep straight wall where my plot met the neighboring sim. Holy crap!

I would have been declared brain dead the following minute if it wasn’t for Eleanor (the lady with the umbrella in my previous post), who was fortunately nearby and eager to improvise a brief psychotherapy session to cheer up an already cyanotic corpse. She also suggested to call upon the almighty estate owner, who happened to be online, and would be able to at least retouch the sharp wall and conceal most of my geographic cataclysm from the rest of the world.

To make a long story short, I regained my composure after realizing something good have come out of the mess:  firstly, reverting the land restored the long forgotten channel that once allowed mid-size vessels to sail over to the next sim (if passengers and crew members survive the maddening lag storm produced at that four-sim juncture, that is), and lastly, I could be confident that any future misdemeanor on my part will be easier to cover up without resorting to call the karma squad.

I won’t go on the details of this makeover since my intends were to abandon my partially nomad status and reestablish the Thornfield Manor as my main dwelling [refer to this previous post], as well as to nefariously cut down my prim allowance. Here are some pics of the feat with a few comments.

Here is a view of the western side of the plot. As you can see, it’s not far from other landscapes I’ve done before. That spray (lower center) is whaley’s nasal shower.


Photos two and three show part of the brackish lagoon that covers most of the plot. Who the hell would enjoy living in such an area? Well, I do… as long as it doesn’t become Mosquitoshire.


Photos four and five show some minor changes in interior decoration (if you compare this instance of the Thornfield existence with the original one).

The only significant change in the house is the cellar. Since I won’t be growing mushrooms anymore, I decided to turn the basement into a meeting room. Not that I’m planning any major event or opening a refugee shelter, but it looks better this way than leaving completely empty and useless.