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It was the Autumn of 2006. After the end of Eagle's Point, I was at a loss to know what to do. I enjoyed building, but owning land was expensive and building was time-consuming. I had to create another avatar to do the building, just to avoid getting into conversations and being interrupted all the time.
Meanwhile, we had been tasting the fun of SL in various ways. We had gone skating, fishing, sailing, walking through parks and woods, partying at friends' houses, attended weddings and other events - and of course, SHOPPING!! There seemed no end to the great clothes I could buy, or furniture for our houses.
Most of this time we had also been visiting church sims, mostly ALM (Abundant Living Ministry) church on "Truth" island, pastored by Benjamin and Mariposa Psaltery. We had made many Christian friends and enjoyed chatting and sharing with them. The way that developed is the main subject of this website.
DJ at the Club
My husband enjoyed dancing and had made friends at a few clubs that he used. He was eventually asked to do some DJ work. This entailed set hours of work and a useful salary (in real dollars), with an employment charter to sign and rules covering his hours and so forth - just like a job in the real world.
Although very outgoing, people-oriented, and expert at hilarious one-liners that kept his friends entertained, he was VERY nervous about being a DJ, but gave it a try. Just the technical aspects were daunting, but once he'd understood how to work the programs, he set about introducing music tracks like a pro.
I'd go along to support him, but dancing and socialising just weren't my style. I would get bored within ten minutes and quit.
Beginning to Get Concerned
Second Life had started taking over our lives. Almost all our friends, and all our social life were on SL. People were beginning to mention that we spent too much time online - and it was true! But it seemed too exciting and engaging to give up. There was always something new to see, to buy, to build, to experience.
The DJ work too was turning into a chore, taking up time late at night when we ought to be asleep, and most of the time there were no tips. Furthermore, it was spiritually worldly. The atmosphere at the dance club was becoming more and more raunchy as well as loud and obnoxious most of the time. The pubic chatter amongst the patrons contained more and more sexual references and profanity until we both felt like we needed a shower every time we went there.
Warning Signs
But then something happened that demonstrates the real nature of Second Life and our so-called "friends" there.
A troublemaker came in and - seeing the club membership tag over my head - decided I was "staff" and started to have a go at me. She was a MAFIA woman (oh yes, Second Life has Mafia groups) who had a grudge against the club owner. She did not listen to anything I said, but continued to rant, and be abusive to me, and then complained about me to the Owner.
I expected to be defended, BUT instead of that, I was accused by the Owner and Staff of pretending to be on the Staff! I was incensed. My husband also tried to intervene and put my side of the story, but he likewise was ignored. It was too much. My husband decided he could take no more, and - to the annoyance of the owners - gave up his DJ employment, salary, tips and all.
Shivar Experiences and Disasters
Shivar Experiences and Disasters
Bonta Komparu
We were now without a house or land and reluctant to buy any.
We had met a woman in the club who sympathised with us. She told us she owned a sim (an area of SL land) and had an empty apartment that we could use. We knew that she was a role-player but not at the club nor while talking to us. She and the guests housed on her sim were followers of the Gorean novels, about which we knew next to nothing.
She was the "Queen" of her island, and expected respect for her role which we were quite happy to give as long as it did not compromise our beliefs as Christians.
As she showed us around her beautiful island "Shivar" which was based on Mont St. Michel she explained that her group despised the crude SL Gor BDSM cults that had no idea about the original novels, and that most people on Shivar lived there as a community that was open to all. She told us that we would NOT be expected to role-play nor to join in their activities, which was a relief, but we would need to dress in a medieval style while on the island and address her appropriately when in the company of others.
Personally I did not intend to spent a lot of time on the island, but it did give us a home base for free! Our new home was a one-roomed hut on the side of a mountain. It was small, but enough for our needs.
I had a great time creating some ancient furniture, and went shopping for medieval clothes for myself and hubby. It felt like fun....
But as time went by, the Queen seemed to put more and more pressure on us to go along with their their role-playing. She had befriended my husband in particular, and I was getting anxious about her dependence on him - to sort out disputes, to give advice and generally to be by her side on the island. She wanted him to be her CHANCELLOR!! (No way Jose).
But we were both sliding into character, and it jarred with our other SL activities as normal people, such as our visits to church sims, and our friends in various clubs and cafes.
Our Solution
Our Solution
We discussed this, and decided that if we wanted to be artificial characters in a game, we should invent characters for it, that were not "real". We would become characters from the pages of a book, while we were on the island. So we created two new avatars, Dunatos Nogah, and Bonta Komparu. Dunatos means "strength" and Bonta means "kindness".
We also wrote a "history" for these two characters that fit the story of the planet of Gor. (See Attachments)
Dunatos was presented with a very expensive and very precious sword. He spent more time on Shivar than I did, but when I visited, I kept in character as much as I could. Now of course I see that we did not remove ourselves from the danger, but simply compromised with it, by taking our real-life normal selves out of the Island, but being there as artificial characters instead.
The Queen's Real Longterm Strategy Exposed
Dunatos was being called upon to be a personal bodyguard to the Queen and to resolve disputes on the island. This was all much more than we'd expected. When there was a reshuffle in the power structure there, Dunatos was asked by the Queen to become her Lord Chancellor, or "Prime Minister".
Then the REAL bombshell dropped - we were told it wasn't acceptable for us to take these roles as Dunatos and Bonta, but we HAD to revert to our "real" avatars.
At that point we felt things had gone way too far. Although we had become more and more uncomfortable with having "fake" identities on SL, it was the ONLY way we could justify roleplaying. But if this course of action was no longer open to us, we could NEVER compromise our "real" personas by fully and openly committing to a Gorean community.
Added to that, the whole Gor way of life was totally against our own philosophy. If Dunatos stepped into a leading role on the island, he would be compromised. My husband and I talked it all over at length and decided there was nothing for it, but to withdraw. I wrote a polite, gentle, but decided notecard to the "Queen" explaining that we could not stay.
Persecution
Persecution
At this point, things fell apart, and we realised that (although we had not been hiding our Christianity) there was in fact a deep antagonism to it, which was triggered by my carefully-worded note of withdrawal. I was then accused by the Queen of criticising her personally and disrespecting her beliefs. We parted coldly, and marked it down to yet another exposure of all that is fake and wrong at the heart of Second Life.
Something else had happened in the meanwhile.
In our "real" SL life, a Christian friend told us about a lovely area of land, where she'd recently moved, and invited us to look at the pieces for sale. This we did. It was "Fredericks" and there was a gorgeous beach-side plot that we fell in love with and bought.
Now we could have a real home again, and I set about building one of my most ambitious builds: A Spanish Villa complete with balcony and covered swimming pool. So it was bugging us now that we were expected to support "The Queen" on Shivar more and more. The whole thing was becoming farcical and we didn't want to continue with it.
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