Tag: Death

LAST CALL! Leaving My Second Life Avatars to Other People Via My Will: An Updated List of Avatars Available (Speak Now, or Forever Hold Your Peace…)

Photo by Melinda Gimpel on Unsplash

During the brutal combination of a bitterly cold winter and a code-red, province-wide pandemic lockdown, I have been steadily working with my lawyer (mostly via email), who is drafting my will, power of attorney and healthcare directive documents. Over the past 26 months, I have slowly been in contact with a number of people who have expressed an interest in inheriting one of my Second Life avatars.

A bit of background is probably necessary to provides a little context. In July of 2019, I wrote on this blog about an undertaking that sprang from a recent bladder cancer scare (which thankfully, turned out to be a false alarm):

I am still working on which Second Life avatars I will leave to other people in the event of my untimely death, via my will. You can read the entire saga here, here, here, here, and here on my blog to see how this quest got started! I know it might sound really silly to some of you, but I consider them perfectly valid possessions, and it would please me greatly to know they will still be providing entertainment and enjoyment to others after I am gone. (If you’re interested in inheriting one of my avatars via my will, please contact me and we’ll talk. I still have a selection for you to choose from!)

That blogpost was followed up with an updated list of available avatars in November 2020, which led to a few more people coming forward, asking to inherit one of my avatars. Now, as my lawyer and I draw up the final version of my will, it’s time for one last call. (Speak now, or forever hold your peace…)

At the time of this writing, I have 23 Second Life avatars whom I am planning to leave to 18 different people (some have requested more than one, which I was happy to oblige). So, my next step is to re-contact all those people, to get a legal, real-life name for my will, if I don’t already have one, and a reliable means of contact (a telephone number or email address, preferably both). All the information about who inherits what avatar will form an attachment to my will, and will be kept private. The only people who will see this information will be my lawyer, and the executor of my estate, and perhaps one or two other key people who will take care of the administrative details after my passing, contacting people and giving out the usernames and passwords of the SL accounts.

I should hasten to assure you that I am only 57 years old, and I have every intention of living at least another quarter century! I may even outlive Second Life itself, which would make all this work superfluous! However, given my underlying health conditions, which put me at risk of a severe, possibly even fatal, response to an infection of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, I feel that I have to cover all the bases here. I hope you understand! Don’t worry about me! I am taking care of myself.

If you are interested in inheriting one of my small army of alts, attached is the current list of who is available, updated as of today.

Please note that all the female avatars in the following list have an assortment of free and inexpensive mesh heads and bodies in their inventories, including the four free group gift Bento mesh heads from Akeruka (Lulu, Kumiko, and Maia, and the recent Limited edition group gift, plus the recent group gift of the W08 head), the recent Catwa Freya group gift, the freebie Genus Strong Face head, the free Chelsea head from LOGO, and the recent group gift of the LeLutka Lilly head. All also have in their inventories the many freebie Altamura full-body mesh avatars that I have picked up over the years (including the full-version Juliet mesh body). These avatars also possess the free, Maitreya Lara-compatible Kalhene Ariadna full-body Bakes on Mesh avatar (no longer available), the freebie versions of the Classic and Curvy eBody mesh avatar bodies, the dollarbie Classic mesh body by Meshbody, and the Afrodite and Atenea mesh bodies by LUCYBODY, which I picked up from a couple of Midnight Madness runs. You’ve got lots of options to work with! Each female avatar also comes with a starter assortment of some of the finest freebie apparel, footwear, and hair which I have picked up over the years as part of my popular coverage of steals, deals, and freebies in Second Life.

Almost all the male avatars have a similar bounty in their inventories, including the free group gift Bento mesh heads from Akeruka (Aron, Keiji, Leon, Clay, and the M02 model), the recent Chase head from LOGO, and the recent free group gift of the handsome Alain head by LeLutka! They also have all six free Altamura mesh avatars (Robert, both versions of Max, Tommy, Aaron and the full-version Romeo body), the dollarbie Classic body by Meshbody, and the Rick and David mesh bodies from ALANTORI. All male avatars also have a complete set of the freebies from Kauna men’s clothing and the free men’s clothing from Fitch for the brands of mesh bodies they own. Again, you’ll be able to hit the ground running!

All the avatars in the following list which are marked “unisex” have both the male and female mesh avatar heads and bodies listed above.

Most of these avatars were created before Linden Lab retired last names for avatar accounts (although there are three that have just the name given, plus Resident as a last name: MissDrag, OrangeCheeto, and PlayboyCenterfold). In some cases, you might want to ask for an avatar because the legacy first name-last name combination appeals to you, or tickles your funny bone (e.g. Coupon Clip).

VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are interested in inheriting one of these Second Life avatars, please contact me via email at ryanschultz [at] Gmail [dot] com (or via the Contact page on this blog). You can also approach me and talk to me in-world in Second Life (my main avatar is named Vanity Fair, whom I am leaving to Strawberry Linden via my will). The best way to contact me is to ping me on one of the many community forums or Discord channels for the various virtual worlds, of which I am a member. I am almost always on Discord!

THESE AVATARS ARE ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY *NOT* FOR SALE! THEY WILL ONLY BE GIVEN AS AN INHERITANCE IN MY WILL, IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH, in accordance with the Second Life Terms and Conditions (Terms of Service) and Linden Lab’s posted official policy on Death and Other Worries Outside Second Life.

I will need your legal (real life) name for my will, and a reliable means of contact (telephone number preferred; email address is acceptable). I will be in touch with you (via email, Second Life IMs, or Discord chat), just to touch base, and I alone will make the final decision as to whether or not to let you inherit one of my avatars, and which one(s).

UPDATE Feb. 24th, 2021: I have had a number of people already contact me about the possibility of inheriting some of these avatars via my will. As I meet with people and accept their requests, I will be adding a note to their profiles on this list below, that they are no longer available to be bequeathed.

  • 2My Fairlady: a female avatar, originally created just so I could have her sit on Lucky Chairs and slap Lucky Boards when they displayed “0-9” 😉
  • Alexandra McKenzie (originally created a female Scottish pirate for historical roleplay, and still a pirate to this day)
  • Artist Scientist (unisex avatar; can be either male or female)
  • Autumn Winter (originally created as the avatar embodiment of Autumn, now a generic female avatar; owns a Kalhene Anya Maitreya Lara-compatible mesh body)
  • Beau Coeur (a male avatar)
  • Betsy Blitz (a female 1950s/1960s historical roleplay avatar)
  • Chi Mai (a Chinese empress)
  • Coffee Philter (unisex avatar; either male or female; owns a Kalhene Anya Maitreya Lara-compatible mesh body)
  • Coupon Clip: one of my absolutely favourite avatars, in whom I have invested a lot of time and energy over the years, and therefore I am going to be very, very picky who gets this one in my will. Coupon is currently a 1950s-styled dancer for tips at various bars (no, she doesn’t escort; after all, a girl has rules 😉 ); Coupon usually is wearing her signature 1950 bouffant hairdo, Akeruka Maia mesh head, and Belleza Freya mesh body as pictured below; this avatar has also has also played Alice in Wonderland, Mother Nature, and over time, she has became my avatar embodiment of Winter/Christmas, with lots of snowy/winter/white/ice blue outfits, both mesh and pre-mesh! UPDATE Feb. 24th: Someone has asked to inherit this avatar via my will, and I have agreed.
Coupon Clip dancing at the Pino bar (more information here)
Coupon Clip at Backdrop Cove (more information and photos here)
Coupon Clip as Alice in Wonderland, back in ye olde pre-mesh days… 
Coupon Clip as Mother Nature (more details here)
Coupon Clip as the Snow Queen (more details here)
  • Diana Huntress (a female avatar, originally created as a medieval archer)
  • Easton Weston: Piggu Jonathan fat man avatar with a Fat Boy AO by Voir, who plays Santa Claus every Christmastime; more information here; Easton also has the Piggu Jamie fat boy avatar, who is essentially styled to look like me in childhood (I was always a chubby kid)
Easton Weston’s Piggu Jamie boy avatar
  • Elvis Popstar: an Elvis Presley look-alike classic avatar, complete with white jumpsuit, microphone and wearable spotlights! I am actually rather surprised that nobody seems to want an Elvis avatar…think of the fun you could have, wandering the grid, looking for Priscilla and peanut butter and banana sandwiches!
  • Eve December (a female avatar, originally created as a Cabaret singer/Liza Minnelli look-alike, but now she’s just a generic female avatar)
  • Evil GossipGirl: a female devil 😉
  • Fairy Queen (a female fairy with a large inventory of wings and wands!)
  • Fidelity Constantine (a young Victorian woman) UPDATE Feb. 24th: Someone has asked to inherit this avatar via my will, and I have agreed.
  • Fire Bird (a unisex avatar, either female or male, whose avatar originally was a freebie Firestorm phoenix I picked up several years ago!)
  • Fortune Telling (a fortune-telling female gypsy, complete with crystal ball!)
Fortune Telling and her crystal ball in action!
  • Good Read (a classic, non-mesh male avatar, portraying an old man man with a pipe and smoking jacket, whom I have now upgraded to a fully mesh avatar with the wonderful Victor head by LOGO!)
Good Read (the old, classic version)
Good Read (the new, fully mesh avatar!)
  • Hearts Delight (a 1960s hippie chick, whom I trot out to the BURN2 festivities in Second Life every year!)
  • Heilige Nacht (a Seawolf fire-breathing dragon avatar!) UPDATE Feb. 24th: Someone has asked to inherit this avatar via my will, and I have agreed.
  • Joy Delight (a female avatar)
  • Layne Carpool: (get it? “carpool lane”?) a generic female avatar
  • Ledba Loon (get it? “lead balloon”? This was the very first female avatar I ever created, so her inventory goes way, waaay back in time. Today she usually wears the Piggu June fat girl mesh body, which I recently updated to version 2.0, along with a set of full-perms clothing to fit it; Ledba is also my witch avatar at Hallowe’en, who has in her inventory all my assorted witch outfits, brooms, skins, etc.)
  • Lily Pond (a female avatar, whom I have recently upgraded to a Legacy mesh body) UPDATE Feb. 24th: Someone has asked to inherit this avatar via my will, and I have agreed.
A couple of shots of Lily Pond in her older Altamura mesh body
Lily Pond in her new Legacy body!
  • MARlLYN Monroe: Marilyn Monroe look-alike classic avatar, with a lowercase-L instead of an I in the first name; her nametag looks like “MARILYN Monroe” in-world. I’m actually kind of surprised nobody has snapped her up yet!
  • Mason Carver: a male avatar, Mason—very fittingly—is currently a grey-and-blue stone god with an outfit and skin I won at Fallen Gods, Inc. in a fortune-telling game.
  • Maya Sass (an Indian/Indo-Canadian female avatar who has my entire collection of saris; more information here)
  • Moesha Heartsong: my beloved female Black/Afro-Canadian avatar UPDATE Feb. 24th: Someone has asked to inherit this avatar via my will, and I have agreed.
  • MissDrag (my drag queen avatar, who owns various male and female heads and bodies, plus the Alexa transgender mesh avatar body from Kalhene; you can see her many different looks here, here, and here)
  • Notecard Writer (my professional librarian avatar, male, currently masquerading as an angel)
  • Oceana Waters (my female mermaid avatar; has a complete collection of mermaid outfits and AOs; more information here)
  • Pepper Salter: originally created to be Red Riding Hood or Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz (more information here), now she is a generic female avatar most of the time:
Pepper Salter: check out the palest of pale blue eyes!
Pepper Salter as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz
  • Prayerful Vigil (a female angel, complete with particle effects!)
  • Richard Lionheart (originally created as a King Richard historical roleplay avatar; now just a generic male avatar)
  • Rose Rage (a female avatar)
  • Ryan Harbour: a male avatar who owns a Legacy male body by Meshbody, which I won in a draw (more info and pictures can be found here)
Ryan Harbour: isn’t he handsome? Ryan is wearing the Akeruka Clay mesh head and the Legacy male mesh body
  • Ryan Love (a generic male avatar)
  • Schnitzel Wiener: originally a male avatar wearing German lederhosen and hoisting a beerstein; now another one of my generic male avatars:
Schnitzel Wiener is currently this handsome silver fox!
  • Silver Quick (originally created as an male elf or troll; now unisex, either male and female)
  • Sim Hopper (another unisex avatar, either male or female; usually a male hiker with a random teleport backpack; formerly a female classic superhero avatar)
  • SisterMary Blister: a stern-looking Catholic nun who comes with an Abranimations HUD to rezz a flock of penguins to follow her around; more information here
  • Sitcom Writer (a unisex avatar, but almost always presents as a well-toned, butch lesbian, with a DEV mesh head and body; picture the Linda Hamilton character in the Terminator movies, and that’s pretty much her! Sometimes, she even totes an automatic rifle around…)
  • Sternen Nacht (a male wizard, either from Harry Potter or perhaps Lord of the Rings)
  • Summer Fall (a female avatar; she usually wears the freebie Giselle mesh head and Jenny mesh body from Altamura which I picked up several years ago)
  • That Guy (“Yes, I’m that guy.”; a male avatar who usually wears a combination of the Akeruka Aron mesh head and the dollarbie version of the Classic male avatar mesh body, with a complete set of all the clothing hat The Mesh Project used to sell for that body, when it was free to pick up for a short time before they shut that store down)
  • Treehugger Cliffhanger (unisex; either male or female)
  • Unusual Delight (female Queen of Hearts avatar, owner of a three-ages Clodet mesh avatar body by Altamura, which I picked up when it was on sale for only L$360)
  • Valentina VonBaum (a redhead female avatar, who was originally created as the avatar embodiment of Valentine’s Day)
  • War Hawk (a male warrior; Roman gladiator and the avatar embodiment of war; he has an Aesthetic mesh bodybuilder body and a number of shields and weapons)
  • Woofie Roffo (wolf; TWI Timber Wolf avatar)
  • Yvonne Leblanc (a female *DOLLCOCO* ball-joined doll by Coco Designs)

So, if you’re at all interested, contact me and we’ll talk! As I have said before, it would give me the greatest of pleasure to know that the avatars I have created and styled over many years as a pleasurable hobby, would have a life after I shuffle off this mortal coil!

Making Plans on What I Want Done with My Possessions (Virtual and Real) in the Event of My Death

I have been thinking about this topic over the past few days, so I decided to write this blogpost to share some of my thoughts with you, my faithful blog readers.

Irrepressible landlady to the well-known 1920s Berlin historical roleplay sims, Jo Yardley, wrote about it on her blog back in 2017, in a blogpost titled If Someone Vanishes in Second Life: those people in Second Life who just suddenly disappear, leaving all their online acquaintances and friends to wonder what happened to them.

Are they seriously ill? Did they die? Or did they just decide to ghost everybody, abandon their avatar, and set up a new, anonymous one? This sort of thing can and does happen in a virtual world where most users are only known by their avatar name.

I have also reviewed the book titled Living and Dying in a Virtual World: Digital Kinships, Nostalgia, and Mourning in Second Life, by Dr. Margaret Gibson and Clarissa Carden (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), which deals with the subject of how SL residents choose to commemorate those avatars/people who have passed away.

In July of 2019, I wrote on this blog:.

According to Statistics Canada, the average life expectancy for Canadian men is 80 years. I am now 55, which means (if I am lucky) that I can expect another quarter-century of life ahead of me.

…

It’s time to be thinking ahead, planning for the future. I still need to draw up a will and a power of attorney, for example. I don’t have a lot of material possessions to leave to other people (my biggest purchases have been my computer and my car). But I do need to set something in place with my final wishes clearly spelled out for my next of kin to follow.

And I am still working on which Second Life avatars I will leave to other people in the event of my untimely death, via my will. You can read the entire saga here, here, here, here, and here on my blog to see how this quest got started! I know it might sound really silly to some of you, but I consider them perfectly valid possessions, and it would please me greatly to know they will still be providing entertainment and enjoyment to others after I am gone. (If you’re interested in inheriting one of my avatars via my will, please contact me and we’ll talk. I still have a selection for you to choose from!) In fact, when the time comes, I may have some Sansar avatars to pass on to others as well (and I am assuming that Linden Lab will set up similar procedures for Sansar as they already have for Second Life). My lawyer is going to have a ball drawing up my last will and testament!

I added:

The important thing is to make plans for the future, but to be flexible and prepare for any eventuality. For example, if I were to be run over by a bus tomorrow, I currently haven’t left any sort of instructions to let people know my wishes concerning my blog and my show (which I would want to be archived for future historians to pore over). I also have an experience called Ryan’s Garden in Sansar, that I would like to be kept in perpetuity as my personal virtual memorial in the event of my passing. I haven’t given anybody else access rights to my blog to post a message in case something should happen to me. I need to set all these things up. Strawberry Singh (whom I admire greatly) wrote an excellent blogpost on these topics, which I recommend you read. You should be thinking about all these things too.

Well, instead of being run over by a bus, I might contract COVID-19 and die. Right now, the coronavirus pandemic is raging out of control here in Manitoba, especially here in the city of Winnipeg, and anything could happen over the next few months. As someone who is older (almost 57), significantly overweight, and who also has asthma, type II diabetes, and hypertension, I am at high risk of a severe, possibly even fatal, reaction if I were to become infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. I take every precaution and follow all the experts’ guidance, but I still worry.

I regret that I have been unable to contact the lawyer whom my financial planner recommended to me, in order to draw up a proper will and a healthcare power of attorney. But we now live in perilous and uncertain times, so I have decided to spend the day today doing two things:

  1. Identifying the key people (both my real life and my social VR/virtual world community) who should have each other’s contact information if the unthinkable happens (real name, telephone number, email, etc.); and
  2. Drawing up a list of my personal wishes, for example, what I want to have done with the RyanSchultz.com blog, my Second Life avatars and other virtual possessions such the Ryan’s Garden world in Sansar, and my real-world possessions as well, in the event of my untimely death. I will also need people to do various tasks, for example putting a message out on social media such as Twitter, and on each of the almost 100 social VR/virtual world Discord community servers I belong to, in order to let the people there know that I’m gone.
My main Second Life avatar, Vanity Fair. I have already contacted Strawberry Singh (now known as Strawberry Linden) and she has agreed to let me bequeath Vanity to her in the unlikely event that anything should happen to me. I take great pleasure in the thought that Vanity Fair will live on after I am gone, and Strawberry will no doubt find it useful to have another avatar available to her as she creates top-notch marketing content for Linden Lab.

I think that doing this will give me some ease of mind, knowing that, in the absence of a will, a number of people will still know what I want to happen to my stuff (both virtual and real) if I should die. In one of my blogposts about my cancer scare two years ago, I wrote:

I…had a nice long chat with my psychiatrist today, and she made me realize that what I am doing here is simply trying to assert some control in a situation where I am not in control. This is apparently a very normal, human response to a situation like a health crisis.

And that is exactly what I am doing here: trying to assert some control in a situation where I am not in control. Obviously, I will not be blogging all the details of what I decide here, but after I have done this, I will tell you what I have decided to do about my blog in the case of my death. All the rest will be shared only with those key people I have identified in Step 1 above.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Although I suffer from a chronic form of clinical depression, I am not suicidal. I have every intention of living that extra quarter-century to age 80, and beyond! I have to live to witness and document what happens next in the ever-evolving metaverse! But I do need to get some practical matters settled. I hope you understand. Please don’t worry about me. I am taking good care of myself and coping with the current situation as best I can.

As always, stay healthy, stay sane, and stay strong in these trying times.

A Second Update: Leaving My Second Life Avatars to Other People Via My Will

Angel Michaela 3 30 Mar 2018
Prayerful Vigil: one of my avatars who needs a good home after I am gone

This week, I have been scheduling in-world meetings with various people in Second Life who had expressed an interest in inheriting one of my SL avatars. (If you want more background on why I am doing this, you can read all about it here, here, here and here.)

One thing that I have discovered, is that most people are not really that interested in taking over someone else’s avatar after the original owner has passed away. The idea probably creeps some people out. It might also be that people are shying away from having to provide a real-life name and means of contact to me and my lawyer (when I select one to draw up my last will and testament).

I do want to make it clear that I will no longer be publishing who gets what avatar on this blog. SaveMe Oh, who evidently marches to the beat of her own drummer, has decided to publish my email to her on her own blog, telling her that she can inherit my drag queen/clown avatar, Velcro Zipper, even though I specifically asked her not to. So be it. She has a habit of posting transcripts of other people’s conversations with her to her blog, so I probably should not be surprised. But she still gets one of my avatars to add to her merry band of artistic warriors and shit disturbers. Maybe the operators of the Linden Endowment for the Arts (LEA) sims might want to add “Velcro Zipper” to their ban lists as a precaution, even though she will not be getting Velcro for many, many years!

But from here on in, it’s nobody’s business who gets which of my avatars in my will. So, if that was a consideration that was originally holding you back from offering to take one, please be reassured. I am not SaveMe Oh, and I will not publish transcripts of our conversations, or our emails/IMs, without your explicit permission!

Here’s my list of avatars. Many are still looking for good homes. I’m actually somewhat surprised that nobody has asked about my celebrity look-alike avatars like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, or Cher:

If you are interested in inheriting one of these Second Life avatars, please contact me via email at ryanschultz [at] Gmail [dot] com (or via the Contact page on this blog). You can also approach me and talk to me in-world in Second Life, Sansar or another virtual world, or talk to me on one of the many community forums or Discord channels for the various virtual worlds of which I am a part (including my own Discord).

This has been a very interesting experience for me! I have already had some fascinating in-depth conversations with people this week, and I look forward to many more in the coming weeks and months! As I have said before, I do plan on living a long and healthy life, and playing Second Life well into my 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, but you never know what can happen, and it always pays to be prepared for any eventuality. And, as I have said before, It would give me great pleasure to know that the avatars I lovingly created and outfitted will live on after my death. It’s a kind of digital immortality, and I honestly don’t think that it’s creepy at all.

Have a plan in place so your friends in virtual worlds will know what happened to you if you suddenly disappear off the grid! And think about what you want done with your digital assets if you should die. How will you choose to have things wrapped up?

Cancer, Death, and Virtual Worlds

marcel-scholte-524343-unsplash.jpg
Photo by Marcel Scholte on Unsplash

Yesterday, I found out that I might have bladder cancer.

I’m going to have surgery on October 3rd. The voluminous paperwork I filled out yesterday said it was for a “Transurethral Resection—Bladder Tumor”. I underwent all the standard pre-operation routines: EKG, chest X-ray, bloodwork. (Yes, I had to pee into a little cup.) The urologist who is operating on me will be doing a biopsy to see if I indeed have bladder cancer. (Thank God for Canada’s universal healthcare system.)

This is all happening so fast that it is making my head spin.

And, well, obviously, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my own mortality.

I actually don’t have a lot of material possessions. My biggest purchases in life have been my computer and my car. And I don’t have a will yet; I’ve been putting it off, and putting it off, and putting it off. Nobody wants to think about death and dying. But now it’s time to start to think about who I want to leave my possessions to.

Ironically, over the past couple of weeks, I have been reading the book Living and Dying in a Virtual World. Reading about how people deal with the death of someone they knew from Second Life. And, as Strawberry Singh herself wrote very recently:

…I was recently reading a post on RyanSchultz.com about a New Book on Second Life: Living and Dying in a Virtual World by Dr Margaret Gibson and Clarissa Carden. The book takes readers into stories of love, loss, grief and mourning and reveals the emotional attachments and digital kinships of the virtual 3D social world of Second Life. If you are interested in reading it, it’s available on Amazon (this is an Amazon affiliate link).

Reading about this book got me thinking about how often I’ve heard it happen that people create friendships and relationships in Second Life (and other virtual worlds) and then one day one of the friends just disappears. They never login again and their friends are left wondering what happened to them. People usually start to assume the worst and think that they’ve passed on, and sometimes that is the case, but regardless, it’s always heartbreaking.

Recently I’ve been very busy in the real world so my blog posts have been a bit sparse. If I don’t blog for a week or so, a number of you reach out and check up on me, to make sure I’m okay. It’s very sweet and actually pushes me harder to find time to login and blog again. Juggling both lives can be hard for a lot of people but I never want to give the impression that I’ve suddenly left SL without a word or something worse has happened to me in the real world.

I thought I would take this opportunity to make you guys a promise, a birthday promise. I promise that if I ever plan to take extended time away from Second Life, for whatever reason, I will always do a blog post and let you guys know. I’ve already been doing this, when I go on vacation or if I have a family emergency come up. If you notice that I have disappeared for a while, maybe a week or two or maybe even three or more and you haven’t heard a word from me, it’s most probably because real life has me so incredibly busy that I just haven’t had a chance to login. I will definitely be back, as soon as I get the chance, I will be back! Now the promise: if something were to happen to me in the real world where I will never be able to return, I have asked both my husband and my brother to let you guys know, either through my two best friends in Second Life (Zaara Kohime and Winter Jefferson) and/or this blog. My husband and brother have all of my passwords and Winter also has access to this blog and can write posts here.

So, like Strawberry, I am making you the same promise: I will not just disappear from Second Life one day without letting everybody know what happened to me. I will set something up, and I will do the same thing for all the other virtual worlds where I am a frequent visitor. I don’t have details yet, but when I do, I will post them here on my blog.

Earlier this year, and quite obviously, not knowing that all this was going to happen to me, I wrote a blogpost about how I want to leave my Second Life avatars to other people when I die:

Here is a photo mosaic of all the avatars I had created during my first five years in Second Life. (I created this photo mosaic back in 2012, as a sort of ceremonial way to wean myself off SL and move on. Of course, that didn’t really happen! I took a long break and came back in 2016.) Many, if not most, of these avatars I have since deleted, but I have kept the rest of them.

slmosaicFINAL.jpg

I understand that it is currently against the Linden Lab Terms of Service (TOS) to give your SL avatar to another person. I believe that we need to make an exception. I would take great pleasure from knowing that some of my Second Life avatars, on which I lovingly spent so much time and money, would live on after I die. It would be a kind of digital immortality.

Of course, I understand that Linden Lab does not want avatar accounts to become a commodity, something that is bought and sold on the marketplace. I was surprised to find that there are even some places online where people actually sell their old avatar accounts, especially those legacy accounts created with a proper first name and last name; this might even be one of the reasons why LL is bringing back avatar last names.

I would never want to sell one of my avatars; I find the very idea repugnant. But it would give me great pleasure to be able to freely give one of my avatars as a gift or a legacy to a friend or family member. And I want Linden Lab to explicitly allow this.

Second Life is soon turning 15 years old. I’m certain that this sort of thing has happened in the past. And I’m quite certain that some of the people driving an avatar in SL are not the original creators. As more of SL’s original userbase starts to die off, this will be a perfectly natural thing for some avid SL users to want to do.

And no, I don’t think it’s creepy at all. The people to whom I would leave my avatars would be free to do as they please with them, redesign them, or give them on in turn.

And I found out that you can, indeed, leave your SL avatars to other people when you die. Linden Lab actually has a process and procedures in place, to deal with just that possibility.

Which leads me to my next point.

Simply put, I need to figure out who gets what avatars when I die. Yes, avatars. Plural.

My (at times, obsessive) hobby over the past eleven years has been to create and design many Second Life avatars, most of whom have interesting legacy names; that is, a proper first name and last name, like my clown/drag queen avatar, Velcro Zipper:

Velcro Zipper at Franks 3 APr 2018_001

You see, she’s both a clown, and a drag queen. (Both involve wigs, and a lot of makeup!) Here’s a picture of one of my clown looks for the same avatar:

Velcro Zipper 25 Sept 2018.png

Here’s another, more classic clown look:

Velcro Zipper 3 26 Sept 2018.jpg

Over the last decade, I have built up a whole inventory of clown-wear for this avatar (mostly freebies I have picked up here and there), and recently, I have expanded it to include drag queen accessories like big hair and ballgowns (again, mostly freebies).

(Yes, I know what some of you reading this are gonna say, I know, it’s a strange hobby. Some people golf. Others play solitaire. I happen to create Second Life avatars. What’s your point? I happen to be damn good at it! And it has given countless me hours of enjoyment, and a boundless outlet for expressing my creativity. So don’t judge me.)

I have spent a great deal of time, money, and energy designing my Second Life avatars, and God dammit, they are all going to live on, and provide enjoyment to others, long after I am gone!!! I am not—repeat, *NOT*— going to let all my hard work and creativity go to waste!!!

I also have to figure out who is getting my stuff in all the other virtual worlds of which I am a part: Sansar, High Fidelity, etc. This means that I am going to have to initiate discussions with the people running the various metaverse companies, many of whom have probably never even considered the issue before: what do you do when you want to leave your avatars and other virtual world possessions to other people when you die?

Well, I have decided that It’s high time to start having those discussions. Avatars are property, pretty much the same as any real-world property. (My lawyer is going to have an absolute field day drawing up my last will and testament!)

Stay tuned for more details.

And please, don’t worry about me; I am going to be fine, no matter what happens. And I am not depressed. I just need to take care of things, work out all the details.

I may also need to suspend blogging, and be absent from the various virtual worlds, for a period of time. I do hope that you all understand.

As it turns out, like the hobbit, I’m off on an unexpected journey. Wish me well. And if you believe in God, please say a prayer for me. I’m going to need all the help I can get.