The Charm of Draconia

 This, of course, is the season of getting stuff. But for those few who already have stuff and would like to get enchanted rather than stocked up, Opensim offers many opportunities in tune with the natural world. Generally nature with a Northern bias, since so many of us live up here, these months are the cold bit of the year.

Winter stirs all the fearful instincts innate in humans. It's the death of the year, of the productive cycle, and our ancestors were full of doubts. Will the sun return, will the food supply last, will the cold or sickness defeat the group; this is the stuff of legends. On the other hand, the changing landscape offers a paradox. In place of the dominant sun, other lights take over, and we see the world in a different way, or perhaps, we see another world that coexists with the bold daylight landscape, one that becomes visible only when the sun is in nadir. Then, we have time to reflect that there is more to this existence than meets the day-to-day eye.

Bink Draconia is one of the best artists working in Opensim and her regions on Pangea are beautiful, thoughtful, ingenious, and atmospheric to a point where you feel charmed when, in the shared environment (the mist is essential) you go for a wander...or do I mean wonder... around  Stella Polaris. 

The wedding zone, Stella Polaris

It's pure wonderland. In part it is a party destination, with a wedding area shown here, and a dance floor with a chessboard theme, and other tableaux gemming the woodland, under starlight. But that's only one aspect of it, the social side. 

Beyond that it's a wistful, misty forest where the ground sparkles with eerie lights in the air and water, and the meadowland is just a little underwater, enough to create that liminal sensation, between day and night, dry land and swamp, the spooky and the sweetly sentimental, with places for a romantic tete a tete or a solitary saunter.

Bink's Ballet

 The bees and the flowers, what's not to love. They are pretty to look at and essential for life on this planet as we know it. Why not bring that spirit into Opensim, where cross pollination between builders, artists, tech people and of course the public create a veritable ecosystem of fun and fecundity. 

Bink met me on sim Koeln on Pangea to talk about her upcoming show. It's going to be on 12 October, at 11 am SLT so save the date, this is going to be a great opportunity to see something extravagant and also catch up with so many friends, and friends of the grid.  The HG Address is at the end of the post, but if you're a regular reader, you know that already.

Bink Draconia: I always wanted to create a men's ballet..Men's ballet is different... it's a funny kind of dancing. i don't know why, but just karsten Runningbear wanted to dance in a tutu for me... so i needed to create npcs for it.... (ok, that's a joke, i wanted npcs from the beginning^^)

Bink Draconia

Thirza Ember: hahaha well that is a funny idea, but Karsten is class so anything he is an inspiration for, will be very good. So your show will be part of the Pangea Birthday celebrations on October 12?

Bink Draconia: yes.... first Lampithalers rainbow parade will start at 19.00 CET, then the ballet and after that an art show by Lampi.

Thirza Ember: oh that's great, a nice mix of entertainment... tell me, what is the biggest challenge with the NPCs?

Four Bits By Bink

Anyone who is well familiar with the Safari is familiar with the name Bink Draconia. I think the first time we had a proper group visit with her was back in 2016 on her grid Kroatan. 

That's a classy name for a grid, Kroatan. Grid names should be catchy, short, and imaginative, don't you think? 

In fact, that name was our first clue to the level of talent we were going to come into contact with, on her Halloween build, made in collaboration with the wonderful Kiki Bailey and with a storyline by Malon Wyngard - you can read about it here. 

Flash forward eight years, and Bink continues to deliver fabulous builds, now on Marlon Wayne's Pangea grid. 

You may remember seeing in 2023 Bink's The Good Place build, which is not just a triumph of landscaping, but a full-on game that shadows the plot of the television series. It's a brilliant synthesis of the story, with a decor so close to the real thing at times that you feel like you're inside your TV. 

But Bink has other fab regions on Pangea to visit, and this post highlights four of them, conveniently set close together in the Great Pangea Ocean. The region names are: Eternal Ice, North Pole, Koburk, and Needful Things. The addresses are, of course, at the end of the post - but what can you expect to see if you go there?

Coming Up Roses

It's December and what better time to start thinking about ...Carnival Season... wait, what?  The Xmas tree still hasn't been decorated! But you know, it's never too soon to begin thinking about your creativity for the coming year. What better way to kick it off, and to kick away the winter blues, than by entering a nice float in the Carnival Parade.

Sim Koeln

Why on Pangea grid? 

Well, it's one of opensim's premier arts grids, with spectacular regions by Tutz Zabelin, Lampithaler Artist, Nyx Breen, Bink Draconia and more. 

The grid owner Marlon Wayne is based in Cologne, where Carnival gets started way earlier than it does in most countries.  Consider this -  Mardi Gras, which is the big Carnival date for most people will be February 13 next year, but for the people of Cologne - in German,  Köln - the carnival season begins on November 11 at 11 minutes past eleven. Pangea has a region called Koeln, which is how you spell Köln when you can't use an umlaut. It's a cityscape that the Pangeans use for all kinds of community art events and a visit at any time will reward you with one  collection or another.

Safari Goes to The Good Place

It sounds so virtuous to say that you 'don't watch TV that much' and even if that's factually true and not a fib to make you look like a better person, there's a very good reason to quit the no-TV habit. It's called 'The Good Place', a comedy series that ran on NBC from 2016-2020 and later shown on other media platforms. Starring Ted Danson and Kristen Bell, it's the story of the afterlife, where people go either to 'the good place' or 'the bad place' depending on what score or rating their actions during life on earth has earned them - except there's a catch... well, go watch the show to find out about all that. Memorable characters, excellent acting, and a divinely funny script all make The Good Place a delight - but wait - there's more! Here in Opensim, there's a brilliant build by Bink Draconia that makes The Good Place an interactive game! The Safarians went to see what was up. 

The build is full of all the in-jokes, familiar characters, and catchlines of the show, which kind of makes a game in and of itself, to see how many you can spot, The build is on the German grid Pangea, famous for its art builds and the inspirational leadership of Marlon Wayne and Lampithaler Artis. What makes this build even more awesome is that Bink has made the whole thing bilingual, no mean feat!

A Collector's Safari

       There's no end to the great builds in opensim, and this week our troupe visited two more great destinations, that cannot be too highly recommended. If you like collecting things, whether it be freebies, or knowledge about the world around you, these are both unmissable. Our second stop, on VIBE grid, is described in the next post, Nova's Vibe, As usual the address for our trip to Kroatan is at the end of the post, and hopefully this article will inspire you to go and visit soon, don't delay...

      The exhortation 'Don't delay' is particularly valid for our first stop, on Kroatan Grid. Last year the Halloween Hunt was a spooky hospital, this time it's an equally spooky small town,  steeped in atmosphere and good ghoulish humor, called Abbandonato. The build closes on November 5, so get your skates on! 

Safari Takes a Cure

          The adventure begins each week with a gathering on Francogrid, sitting around on the deck outside the clubhouse. Some strange reason, in all four incarnations of the clubhouse, the group always seems to prefer to be outside. Perhaps it's the adventurous spirit of those brave souls who show up each week to boldly go. 

Aime Socrates, Pathfinder Lester and Snowbody Cortes, waiting for the fun to begin

It's almost Halloween and so that means it's time to go spookily into that dark night... courtesy of the gang over on Kroatan Grid.   The exact HG Address you will find, of course, at the end of this post.