Seduction Estates

By Becky "Sha" Shamen

While scanning the World Map for interesting, unusual sim groups, we came across this cluster of 30 sims. The individual sims were laid out in such a way as to allow one to travel to all points in the cluster, while being spread out over a larger area of the grid than a compact grouping would cover. It was also clear that every sim also contained water areas that made it obvious that the preferred mode of transportation is by boat. We have a collection of boats, but thought it best to make a quick visit to determine what the rules are and what kind of craft would fit best in the area. Zooming in on the map, we notice that the sim which is fourth from the top and second from the right is the only one without any water of it's own and has a darker texture at the center. This seemed like a good clue that this sim might be an administration and gathering area, so it was selected as a starting point for our adventure.

 Arriving on a beach, on the West side of the sim, we open "About Land" and read up on what the area is about. The entire cluster is known as "Seduction Estates" and is dedicated to selling or renting residential properties. There are no shops or dance clubs or other public gathering spots. This region is for rich, hedonistic, clothing optional adults to have their mansions in a "Tropical Paradise", kind of like a "Beverly Hills on the sea." The rules say no child avatars are allowed, but there is no mention, for or against, of furries being permitted. We played it safe, by going as a 4' tall adult human female. To keep up with the Jones's, we decided to get an inexpensive motor yacht and found one at the Marketplace, for only $75.

We rezzed our yacht at Sunny Beach, to get a feel for how it handles. Satisfied that it would be a good craft for the adventure, we dressed in a yellow polka-dot bikini and a modesty top, to give us the rich girl, playing with "Daddy's Money" look.

We plotted a course that would begin at the Northeast sim and would take us through all thirty sims, using the public waterways. Since most of the properties have security orbs, we wanted to avoid getting sent home, so most of our exploring would be done by zooming and panning our camera.  

To aid navigation, we made good use of both the World Map and the Mini Map. Unlike most of the places that we have visited, the world map, at this location, showed all the properties that are for sale or rent in yellow. This would help us locate and price the available properties.

Although we never found any offices for administration and land sales, we did discover the only gathering spot on a hill in the center of the sim we did our first research on, Seduction Isle. This "club" has a stage, with piano, and three dance floors, we assumed for couples dances, but there was nobody there during our adventure.

 Each of the many individual properties is a small island, surrounded by rocks, waterfalls and trees, for privacy. Most have a large mansion in the center. I was impressed by several that even had the nautical equivalent of a drive way, to moor boats off the main water ways. Few of the mansions had a lived in look, so we began to think, if you've seen one cookie cutter mansion, you've seen them all.

That is, until we spotted an old, derelict sailing ship. The ship and nearby building are probably not a residence. It seemed more like a local park, the sort of place that young adults might gather, to be away from the eyes of elders, while enjoying forbidden fruits.

Speaking of being unseen, we noticed that the number of people, on all of the sims, was highest after 9p.m., but even then was only a few individuals and couples and they were mostly up in skyboxes. We had hoped to find some residents that could be zoomed in on, to check out what the natives were wearing, but they seemed to vanish, each time we were near.

 

Following the World Map, we tracked down the three property sizes that are offered at Seduction. All of the properties require a one time payment of L$500 plus a weekly tier payment, based on size. They each come with a house, which can be replaced with your own. Houses provided count against the prims allowed for each property. A 1/16th sim is $1550 per week, with 460 prims. 1/8th sim is $2500, 900 prims. 1/4 sims are $2900, 930 prims.

 

Personally, as an efficient shopper, I enjoy a higher quality home and community, for half the price, so I'm not planning on moving. In SL, we can become anything we desire. If you feel seduced by Seduction Estates, I wish you all the pleasure desired. Live there or not, we found it to be a fun adventure. We navigated through 30 sims, in a shiny new mega motor yacht and it was like a Hollywood bus tour of the homes of movie stars. Come, enjoy a tropical vacation and let your inner, petite, cuter than dimples on a bunny, rich white girl come out to play, Queen For A Day.

 

We already know what all the guys want,

 

"Sha"

 

The Sunweaver Estates

By Becky "Sha" Shamen

When one contemplates the workings of the universe, adjusting our perceptions of scale and time, to view it in it's entirety, down to the tiniest sub-atomic particle, we discover it is all controled by a single fractal formula. This formula is the matrix of life. Everything is connected and part of the whole. The universe is a living thing. It and all of it's parts, for optimum health, act as one. Small lives gather to form greater lives, with greater powers, from clod to god, as the saying goes.

The Sunweaver group is founded by Rita Mariner and is about nine years old, with 660 current members. The group's roots go back to a gathering on the MUD sim, that came to be known as MUD's Women. As they grew in size, the gathering moved to Pockwock and filled half the sim. The first full sim was named Sunweaver Isle. I wasn't around, when they decided on the name, but have always felt it inspires faith and hope in a greater life. Over time, new sims were added around the isle. They were all connected, up to 9-10 at one point. The included map shows an up to date view of the cluster of sims, Sunweaver Estates. The six sims are connected face to face, permitting ground and air traffic, from end to end. Boating will involve a short portage on HV Community. A new roadway allows ground traffic and has a single rail trolly to all the Sunny neighborwoods. I'm a Sunweaver Highway Junkie. I'll walk, ride or fly the length and back, several times a week, discovering new points of interest and making new friends. We'll take that journey, checking out some of the points of interest in a moment.

There are other sims which are tied to Sunweaver, but not "physically" connected. A few sims distance to the East, we find Sunweaver Isle, Rita's home. There are isles between her and the main group, but they parlez vous Francais and little else is known about them. A few miles west of the cluster, you'll find plenty of Sunweavers on the Purrfection Estates, especially at theme parties, Tuesday and Thursday nights, at the Happy Vixen Beach club. To the South, there are MLP themed sims,which, at one time were connected to the Sunweaver sims. I should mention that, although Sunweavers are predominately Furries, they are open, friendly and helpful to all other avforms.

Hop on my jet hover bike and we'll take a quick tour of the six connected Sunweaver sims. We'll point out some of the better known points of interest. We could name many more, but a) after all this time, I am finding new interesting areas and b) you should come and explore them for yourself. We'll begin at the Southern end, my home in Second Life. My life long involvement with family, friends and community carries into Second Life. As I explore the grid, for new adventures, I always keep an eye out for signs of evolved communities. I've found quite a few fine communities and, for most of my years in SL, have lived in the one I love the best, Sunweavers.

Sunweaver Bay

 When I am not out exploring the SL world or dancing at the many local theme parties, you'll find me keeping watch on the sim and teaching new members how to build, make clothing and be good citizens. My two castles are always open to the public and often have house guests,staying until they get a place of their own. The bay has two large nightclubs. Cutlass VI hovers above the bay and, as the name suggests, has a long, successful history. It's open on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday nights, for theme parties. You'll find plenty of friendly folks there. Bring your funny bone and try to out-pun Bix.

On the N.E. corner of the sim, we find a dark castle, Primal Passions club. This club is owned by Rayven Tentigo. The atmosphere is "Noir" and attracts a different clientele than Cutlass, but also hosts Sunweaver events, like the Kiss concert for RFL. There are also two smaller, less known clubs, to gather with friends; the Drunken Parrot Pub, located at the trolley stop and the Rainbow Club, hidden behind the Fire Station, for those that like Reggae music to chill by. Two more stops, before we leave the sim. To the East of the fire station there is a large structure with a landing strip on top. The interior houses our Sunbeamer RFL team meetings and a museum of Sunweaver history in pictures and 3D models of sims. East of the air strip, be sure to visit the Fimi Memorial Tree house. As we take a last look around, the Castle towers, tree houses, air strip and Sunbeamer's HQ and flying night club give us the impression, the inhabitants of Sunweaver Bay have their sights set to the heavens.

Sunny Beach

This sim is still trying to decide what to be, when it grows up. For a long time, it featured surfing and a beach club. After that, Club Fur made it's home there, for about a year. Currently, it is available for rent and wears a winter coat of snow. I call it the over the river and through the woods sim. Although in reality I avoid cold climates, this sim has always been a favorite place to chill. Those wishing to make this homestead sim their home can contact Rita Mariner or Nydia Tungsten, for details.

HV Community

As we head East, to this sim, we are greeted by businesses on both sides of the highway, including Angel Creations, Alien Wise Enterprises, Hidden Valley, Brandi's, Angel Beach Land Rentals and SL Newser's office. There is far more to this sim than just the 9 to 5. As we pass the Newser office, we thumb our nose at Bix and head for higher elevations.

As we climb, we note that a good portion of the Northern part of the sim is owned by RECoyote and his partner, Perri Prinz. At ground level, it's a wonderful playground, for kids of any age. At the higher altitudes, they have skyboxes and platforms for their lofty pursuits. Perri's Spectral Shadows Art Gallery is a showcase of her story telling talents. Higher still, we find the Vinyl Museum, a night club featuring Perri and other master DJs. The club is currently dormant, but still in the same location. I caught up with REC, in the club and was told it would always be there. I noted that it had a new name over the door. We look forward to when events will be held there again.

While we are thousands of meters up, notice there are many sky objects to navigate around. Passing through this sim, the radar shows that most of the residents are in the sky. Ahead, you will see a large, man made moon. Within it's phantom shell, you might find Ranchan, building her next generation star craft. Dropping altitude to navigate, we again head East, to the next sim.

Sunlight Bay

This sim is mostly water, with the highway and trolly passing through it. On the East side, there is a large castle, the home of Nydia and Brandi Tungsten and friends. I understand the castle is open to the public and, if your timing is right, they might even show you around. I have written about it before, so we will move on with our tour of Sunweaver. We are now heading North.

Sunweaver Space

This is one of the older sims in the group and has a large and varied population. Space was the previous home of club Cutlass and right below it is the Sunweaver Mall. There are also some cool venders on the S.W corner of the sim. This reporter loves going shopping. You'll also find me here, every Sunday night, at the Feral Fury, watching movies, provided free by Shockwave Yareach, with my friends. There's even free popcorn. From Feral, we head down and find ourselves lining up for a landing on the final sim.

Pacific Waters

We come in for a landing at Farshore Field and taxi off the runway. There are some vintage aircraft, lining the tarmack. At the Far end, check out The Puddle jumper Mall. On the S.E. corner of the sim, there is a seaport for ships and sea planes. Around the perimeter of the isle, a race track allows you to test your latest hot wheels. In the hilly woods, in the N.E. quadrant, there is an underground bunker/clubhouse. There's no guard posted, so walk right in and take the elevator down.

This sim is the work of the well respected Cynthia Farshore. She and Shockwave built Cutlass VI, together.

In this article, I have given the names of a handfull of Sunweavers out of the 660 total membership. Dividing the few by the many, I have introduced my readers to the most notable one percent of Sunweavers. For closing comments, I asked what people liked about Sunweaver. I'll end with a few of my favorites.

Shockwave, "I like it here. That's why I stay here."

RECoyote, "Y'all are my kind of crazies"

Bixyl, "I've lived at a few places before the 'weavers. Most didn't last very long. I've probably called it a "prac-topia" at times. Not an utopia, but as close as one can practically get. Little drama and level headed discussions on how to handle what issues we have."

The saying is true, "When you live in Sunweaver, you get more than land. You get a community."

"Sha"

The Lionheart Estates

By Becky Shamen

Lionheart Estates - Forward to the past

So far, I've explored sims and introduced you to mermaids, pirates, knights and dragons, and ways to create your own fantastic journeys in Second Life. The most fantastic thing about this next group of sims is, you won't find anything magical or imaginary. In fact, touring here may remind you of your own, real life home town.

I found Lionheart Estates in the destination guide, under the miscellaneous category. They said it was a continent, but as I looked at the 17 connected sims on the map, the first thing that came to mind was that it looked like it was about the size of the area I could explore, on foot and bicycle, as a youth. To this day, I still enjoy going on day trips, to explore my local areas of interest, on foot or by using other means of transportation that are available to me. Planning a visit to these estates brought out the adventurous inner child in me. For this trip, I planned on using, in addition to walking and biking, my horse and a new antique 1912 Renault CB, which I bought at the Titanic sim.

Lionheart Estate Continent

secondlife://LIONHEART/104/104/22

This group of 17 contiguous sims is located on the farthest western part of the SL world. More than 55% of the areas are public, protected land with waterways and lakes, streets, paths and railroads, natural parks and scenery. The above SLURL takes you to a landing point on the Lionheart sim. From there, go North, up the stairs and turn right. There, you can rez a free bicycle or a golf cart that seats four. They will last, as long as you stay seated on them, but will quickly vanish if you get off.

To the East, is the sim called Zira, which is all residential. I sent my camera in to have a look around. On one lot I spotted a Gypsy wagon, suggesting a liberal building code, as long as you keep paying the tier.

Heading North to Simba, there is a dock where you can get a motorboat, to tour that sim and Kovu by water. Like the bikes and golf carts, the boat poofs when you get off of it. I used my car to tour the other sims at this latitude, Nala, Sarafina and Nuka, noting the beautiful public parks found here, with their magnolias and weeping willows. They used fewer sculpted prims in Lionheart than in the previous group I had visited (Vanwenia), so there was also less lag to deal with. While in Sarafina, I paused to make a photo, in the park, to show off my car.

Now, after having seen about half of the million plus square meters of Lionheart, I opened my map, to see which direction to proceed. I noticed the ground on the Northern sim of Kopa appeared to contain mountains, so made a TP to it, planning to continue from there, south. Sure enough, there were mountains there. which, in addition to being scenic, also served as privacy walls between homes. Each home was in it's own little valley. In one small valley, I checked out a mission chappel, with a half dozen tombstones on the grounds. Heading West, through Vitani to Kiara, the scenery becomes progressively more urban. In Kiara, I spotted another church, which, true to my nature, had to be explored. Inside, the first thing I noticed was the alter was at the north wall, with a cross above it, with a body on it. This told me that I was in a Catholic church. Zooming in on the alter, I see the cards with prayers are written in Latin, which confirms my theory. 

On this sim, I saw one of the most unusual structure in all of the estates. It was a stone home, built on two legs, one a natural stone spire, the other of masonary. From here, I headed South and zig zagged my way through the commercial, "downtown" sims. I started this area on horseback, so I could ride on sidewalks, avoiding robotic traffic, which doesn't stop for pedestrians or slow antique cars. In Ahadi, still on my horse, I zoomed my camera inside of the Locutus Watanabe's clothing store and saw a prize chair with the letter "B" on it, with only a minute left on the timer. Without first dismounting, I clicked on it to "sit here" and me AND the horse sat on it together and won a black dress. He wanted to share the prize, but I told him it wouldn't fit and offered him a beer instead. 

Leaving that shop, I spotted another sim, across the street, called "The Frame House". Inside, the walls were covered with many ornate frames. I wasn't interested at first, because I had many picture in my house and was near my prim limit. Then I noticed that the picture in the frames kept changing, like a slide show. A sign informed me that one could put their own pictures in the frames and they would show, in slide show manner. A light bulb lit up above my head. If I had one of these, I could free up many prims in my house and put in some favorite furnishing that I did not then have room for. All of the frames were $200 each and I'd only need one, so I picked my favorite, bought it and went home. Now, most of my art and photos of friends are in one frame and I have added my pipe organ to the music room again.
 

After putting my house in order, I returned to my exploration of Lionheart in the exact spot where I had left off. To my great delight, I discovered that my favorite shoe store, Bootgasm's, has a branch here. They have a large selection of shoes and boots, but not near as many as the main store, which also has a clothing department and some prize chairs. Thanks to their prize chairs, I have, by far the largest folder in my inventory, 49 pairs of boots and shoes from Bootgasm, which dwarfs by comparison my next two largest folders; Bad Kitty, with 23 items and Sirena's Hair, with 19 hairs. Perhaps I should write a fashion article soon (grin).

Moving on, I next discovered a night club, called "Hot Licks Rock Club." The decor reminded me of the Hard Rock Cafe, several of which I have worked shows in, in real life. I arrived there at 10:45pm and there were a half dozen people there, so I assume it is a popular hang out. There was also a stage, with a drum set on it, so they likely also feature "live" shows. I spent some time there, chating with the folks, asking if they knew of other places of interest on the sim, but like most club attendees, they only know about the club and not the surounding area. Across the stree from the club, I found a large fire station. Having donated a fire engine to the fire station on Sunweaver Bay, I like to see how others have built theirs. This one had four vehicles; a tanker, fire engine, ambulance, and entourage car.

Turning West, I entered Scar and found a shop called "Dekute Dekore", which sells low prim, animated furniture. They also have a kid's department, with scaled down items. I saw a full kitchen, with animations, made of only one prim. Upstairs, I saw a bedroom suite, called "Urban Grunge", that had a mattress on the floor and a bookself made of cinder blocks and boards.

On the map, you can see that the four southern sims have a beach connecting them. I decided to complete my exploration with a stroll on the beach. Along my way, I saw a small chappel and went in to look around. It wasn't ornate or richly furnished, but on the front riser there was a small sign, which I zoomed in to read. The sign said, "Click here to receive Jesus." Laughing out loud, I just had to see what that was all about, so I clicked it. Sure enough, I got something, but I'm not going to tell you what. If you want to find Jesus, you should go to Lionheart and find him for yourself (smile).

Becky "Sha" Shamen