Shelly Island

Imagine a place that's a little bit Neverland, a little bit Castaway, a little bit Survivor, Lost, and Treasure Island, and above all a LBGTQIA and straight friendly. Located  on Dark Wolf's grid, Adult Life, It's Shelly Island.

The landing point gives you a little glimpse at the amount of backstory that went into the planning of the sim. Remember to join the group when you arrive, without it, you can't go any further into the build. It's a place for romance and for parties, which are Saturdays at 8pm German time, 11am SLT. Here's Chrissy, Dark Wolf's wife, with me at the entrance. Guess who's not been to the tanning salon in a while...

Chrissy Coage:  Clothes are very optional at this sim...

Dark Wolf:  Shelly Island is somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle. Several ships and planes have crashed here, and the survivors have escaped to a deserted island. Shelly Island was founded.

Free Expression

 Summer time, and the livin' is easy... if by living you mean taking a wander around Opensim and seeing some beautiful and meaningful art, and being able to snag a lot of gorgeous original freebies. The talent and the generosity of this artist are so well known in Opensim, and you probably guessed who's being featured just by looking at the photos. 

Cube, Cherry Freebies, Pangea  Grid

In her fifteen years in Opensim, on Francogrid and here and there on a dozen other grids, not to mention her years in SL before and during her Opensim sojourn, Cherry Manga has never failed to delight us and amaze with her spirit and her vision of both the Opensim community, and of her own RL battles. So many can relate to her artwork expressing the frustration of illness and the toll it takes on mind and body. Despite that, her art is capable of wild flights of fantasy,  of beauty and tenderness,  of dreams and nightmares, into the past and into a techno future.

All at See

Redwood Bay is a relatively new region on Neverworld grid, and it's home to The Rocking the Seas cruise, which was launched on 4 May this year. The event was a big success, so another is planned for some time during the July 4 weekend, so keep an eye on the Neverworld grid events to check times and dates. There's so much to see!

Put together by Gundahar Bravin, the cruise build has a contemporary East-West coast feel to it, and the ship sits alongside the Opensim Coast Guard boat, an essential piece of kit if you think about the vastness of the virtual sea! Neverworld owner Govega Sachertorte was very happy with the May event.

Govega Sachertorte: Gundahar did a magnificent guided tour, with DJs. We had 25 people on the initial tour and were thinking in the future to have you guys come visit us for a hg safari tour ... its really amazing,  the whole cruise is scripted on a 4x4 region, gift shop, undersea submarine tours, and views of the bridge.

Gundahar Bravin: I decided to build a cruise ship because, well, the idea came from wanting to provide new and dynamic event venues for our Residents and visitors. Not just a club, but a truly memorable experience! I first thought of a cruise ship, because I wanted a moving platform, with entertainment, drinks and many beautiful sights to see while enjoying dancing and interacting with others. I owe many thanks to our Assistant Event Manager Amanda Greenthumb, she deserves a great deal of credit for much of the modification work and countless hours helping me put all of this together.

Small Screen

Erwan is a pretty uncommon name native to Brittany, that anciently romantic and windswept peninsula in Northern France, full of legends and stone monuments like the Carnac Stones that are fabulous cousins of Stonehenge. Breton is a Celtic language, like Cornish or Welsh, and the name Erwan corresponds to 'Yves' in French, the closest we come to it in English is the girl's name Yvonne. 

An etymologist's delight, the progression from Erwan to Yves to 'if' - modern French name for the yew tree, that most mysterious evergreen with its bright winter berries and deadly needles, something mysterious and after-lifey going on there. Golly, so Chateau d'If is Yew Tree Castle! Who knew? Well, Frenchies everywhere did, obviously. I'd always thought of it in terms of the English 'if'... "if ever I escape from here, I'll get my revenge", that kind of thing. Anyway, enough Montecristoing... 

The talented Erwan, now in the ava-iteration Roman Fox, has set up a successor of sorts to Serenity Grid, and it has a definite flavor of the rugged Breton land and seascape. Some of you may remember a couple of glorious regions on Serenity that I blogged about a while back, the Monet house and garden, and Mont Saint Michel both unbeatable for the instinctive realism of familiarity and just good old building chops. It was a small miracle of a grid, and it was very sad to learn that it had gone offline. When I learnt about this new grid, also quite minute, I had to come see.