This applies to RLV and RLVa

There has been a code change, I don’t know the technical details or the reason and frankly as an end user I don’t need to. What I do need to know is what it means for me, which I’m about to share with you.

As I have posted previously, I use Sharie Criss’ fw plugin with the Amethyst collar and more recently with OpenCollar (thanks to a handy Amethyst to OpenCollar conversion script I found; something for another post). I mainly use it for my own benefit. I find it far easier to type:

/saber

hit return and have my Eclectic Randomness Saber boots attach to my feet than the tedious open inventory, click, navigate, click, navigate, click navigate wear folder ZZzzzzzz are we done yet?

Which is fine, why I have them in #RLV and not in my main inventory. I have lots of other things in #RLV and there are some I’m not happy giving strangers / others access to. Tyically these items live in the directory:

.> Utility

The `.’ is significant. That’s what hides the directory from RLV tools and this was a good thing. Let’s look back at /saber and pretend that they’re in `.> Utility’ – /saber calls up a gesture which has one chat command in it, this reads

/77shufw wear ut/saber

Now back before the code change in both viewers, that worked just fine and dandy.

Now, it doesn’t. The presence of the `.’ at the beginning of the folder name messes up the pattern matching. That is annoying, but it’s not insurmountable. Modifying the gesture, this will do the job:

/77 shufw wear .> Utility/saber

So, you can still have your hidden directories but you cannot pattern match on them. Subdirectories of the hidden directory can be pattern matched.

Now excuse me while I go edit 30 odd gestures….

Marine was kind enough to stop by the original airing of this post on my blog to leave the following clarification.

Yes Shuggi, the former behaviour was a bug and was breaking content actually, invisible folders should never be accessible… However I have given up trying to hide them completely, due to the very script you mentioned. So yes invisible folders can still be accessed but are not listable nor pattern matched (although their children can be), that’s an acceptable tradeoff I think…

Sorry for the inconvenience,
Marine

RLV offers a number of tools to control the environment of the bottom.  These are:

• Touch
• Fartouch
• Windlight
• Mouselook
• Edit
• Rez
• Inventory
• Names
• Wear/Unwear
• World Map
• Minimap
• Hovertext (Hud and world)
• Flying

Wow.  That’s a lot innit?  Way too much for one post, my fingers will fall of mah paws and you’ll all be bored senseless.  I’m going to try something a little bit different for this post, posit a few scenarios and see which restrictions make sense and which don’t.

Let’s start with a simple handcuffing with hands in front.  What changes do you think might apply?  Which ones make sense?

Touch, well yeah you can touch just fine with handcuffs on.  Trust me on this, I’ve set up a sound system with hinged handcuffs on, yeah it was awkward and there were a couple of things I needed a little help on (uncoiling cable with cuffed hands is problematic) but for the most part it’s not that big a restriction.  So touch and far touch are out.  Out of all that list the only one that would really make sense is wear/unwear.  Try taking a top off with cuffed hands….good luck!

Okay so with a simple handcuffing in front, there’s not really much for RLV to do here to help the roleplay.  How about if the hands are cuffed behind the back though?  Even simple chain link cuffs are much more restrictive behind the back and if they’re hinged and brutally applied in the now common over and under style, that’s a pretty severe limitation of freedom.  What restrictions apply now?

RR restraints default to touch blocked when hands are bound behind the back, on frist examination this may make sense however with opposable thumbs still free and given a little bit of mobility, you can still manipulate things if you can get to them.  For that reason I far prefer fartouch, which blocks touch past a distance of 1.5 meters.  For me, this makes a lot more sense as RR restraints can be operated from 3M away so if you’ve got clickables and you’re dealing in a bit of turn the tables, this opens up avenues for things to happen that block touch would prevent.  In short, it’s more realistic.

I’d apply other restrictions as well.  Edit and rez would be gone; it’s improbable that one would be able to do much more than press buttons, flick switches or turn keys so those restrictions make sense, along with the deny wear and unwear.  Inventory I would still allow, though.  With no edit, rez or wear there is little purpose in blocking inventory.

Let’s consider a bottom who has no other restraint except a pair of fist mitts.

Have you ever worn fist mitts?  I have and let me tell you they are the most frustrating things!  Sure you can wave your arms around like a brownie practising semaphore, but can you do anything useful?  Not on your nellie.  For such a restraint, block touch is most definitely favoured.  The same goes for straitjackets, single sleeve arm binders and the like.  Really, you’re utterly helpless in these things (great, isn’t it?)

Let’s consider a bottom who’s stuck in a cell, with one barred door.  The bottom is otherwise unrestrained, what restrictions might apply?

Well again fartouch would be good, unless the bottom is Mr Fantastic from the Fantastic Four and has rubber arms that can reach across a sim, there’s no way that the bottom would be able to touch anything any further than arm’s length from the bars.  Stuck in a cell, well there’s be no handy closet to get to so therefore no inventory.  Wear and unwear clothes is somewhat debatable, the bottom can take off clothes but with no inventory the bottom will be stuck nekkie.  Some may not consider that a bad thing

And now to draw out the elephant in the room…. dah da dahhhh, mouselook.  This is one of the few occasions where I’d use mouselook.  You are stuck in a cell.  That means all you can do is look through the bars of the cell.  Limiting?  Yes, it is, that’s the idea.  A cell puts a serious restriction on your freedom of vision and mouselook does a good job here.  Alternatively some kind of cam restriction would work well, there are several products available (RR and MD both have plugins available for this) which will blind the bottom if camming is greater than  a selected distance.  For long term, I’d suggest cam restrict rather than mouselook, although mouselook is certainly the more realistic.

Some of you nutjobs enjoy being kidnapped.  You know what, that’s okay ’cause I enjoy kidnapping   So let’s look at that for a minute; you’re idly whiling away your time in one of the less safe hubs in SL and All of a sudden you’re grabbed!  A hood goes over your head, in short order you’re bound and chucked in the back of a van to the evil lair.  Not a word has been said by your captor.

This is where deny names, map and minimap and hovertext come in.  Part of being kidnapped is not knowing where you are and, potentially, not knowing the identity of your captor.  Get this bit right and the kidnapping experience becomes a lot more real.  Of course as soon as the hood comes off, if you are known to the captor, then no names should be removed.  From that point having no names is a logic bomb, not an enhancement to RP and enhancing RP is what RLV is for.

Bit of a different format for this post, I hope it worked for you.  Till the next time, ta ta for now.

Welcome back, this’ll be a much shorter post (I hope).  I class Direct communication as:

• IM
• Notecards
• Photos (textures)

The reasons for restricting these methods of communication are varied, contextual and much more contentious.  Why are they contentious?  Well for many notecards, photos and especially IM are Out Of Character ((OOC)).  Except for very specific types of play, I concur with this view as I tend to play with an audience and for both the sake of me and my top/bottom, it’s better if any OOC stuff happens in private.

Consider the following in front of a half dozen people:

Top takes out a large butt plug which has a hollowed out middle with medical tubing fitted in to it.

Top: You need a good cleaning out, slut.

Bottom:((actually I don’t do anal, much less enemas))

Having been on the receiving end and the giving end it’s really not a comfortable feeling to inform or be informed that you’re trespassing a limit in front of others.  I can roll with it but it doesn’t look that good to others and puts both in an uncomfortable position.  I know some bottoms who’d rather log than fess up in public that a limit’s being approached, which is sad but there we go.  For some tops, especially inexperienced ones, it can end the scene as well; not because that a limit’s been identified but due to being flustered.

Same scenario:

Top takes out a large butt plug which is has a hollowed out middle with medical tubing fitted in to it.

Top: You need a good cleaning out, slut.

IM Bottom:((actually I don’t do anal, much less fluids))

IM Top: ((Okay, I’ve heard you.  I’ll RP it away if you can roll with it for a couple of poses?))

IM Bottom: ((Okay))

Top examines your rosebud thoughtfully, weighing the large butt plug in her hand.

Bottom looks at the butt plug with wide, horrified eyes

Top:  You’re an anal virgin, aren’t you slut?

Bottom nods slowly, blushing a bit

Top frowns

Top: Pity, I don’t have a virgin’s butt plug to hand.  We’ll have to rectify that sometime.

Now isn’t that much more appealing?  It’s for this reason, mainly because I do play with strangers quite a bit, that I much prefer to leave IM unblocked or at the very least with me as an exception (I’ll get to that).

So where does that leave notecards and pictures?  This is something I’ve played with a little bit but not much, let’s say for one reason or another you’ve been left gagged and the gag blocks IM.  You’re otherwise unrestrained, you could do something like this:

Friend: Oh, gagged.  Why are you gagged?

Bottom gets out her notepad and scribbles quickly, showing the pad to her friend

Let’s pause here a minute, Friend gets the note and there are other people around, this gives Friend some options, she can do one of a few things.

Friend reads the note and chuckles, motioning to Bottom that she’s read it.

or

Friend theatrically reads from the note, “Because someone gagged me, stupid!”

Friend sighs as she hunts around for her crop, “Not having much effect on your manners, maybe I can fix that…”

and so on.  The point I’m making is that Bottom still has a way to IC communicate and that’s something that can be taken away; an opening for further interaction.  Now let’s say that’s the path friend’s going down and she manages to overpower bottom, binding her hands.  How’s she going to write?

That’s the sort of scenario where blocking notecards would make sense.  Now of course you could do that by RP but remember the fundamental thing about RLV is making the bottom feel controlled: that’s the reason Bottoms install RLV.  Unless there’s something in the profile saying don’t do this kind of restriction, go for it!  Worst that will happen is an OOC communication not to block and you can change it.

Banning photos essentially means blocking inventory.  In an RP context there are usually few good reasons for banning photos as many in SL like to take snapshots of their encounters as souvenirs .  If you’re going for a prison type scenario and the like, it’s appropriate then but in the main it’s one of my less favoured restrictions.

As is probably apparent by now, there are few occasions where  I apply these restrictions; however when I do there’s one thing I do like to do; make myself an exception.  This means that the bottom is still able to communicate with me in IM and me alone.  That in itself can be quite the head trip.  The only occasions I can think of where I’d consider a complete lockdown is banishment, MD Pod Prison and other similar activities.

There are a couple of fundamental thrills with bondage, being controlled and having control taken away from you.  A very effective way of doing that is taking away or limiting the ability of the bottom to communicate.

This can, of course, be role played.  I’ve done that and it’s good but it does not compare, for me, to trying to say something to the top only to have gibberish or nothing come out.  It makes me feel controlled.  As a top that is my goal, to have the bottom under my control and RLV can do much to achieve that.

Communication in SL happens in a number of ways

• Chat
• Emoting
• Private Channels
• IM
• Notecards
• Pictures

And other sneakier ways (no I’m not going to tell you, that’ll do for now).  Each of the listed methods can be controlled by RLV, what gets controlled is dependent on the context.  If you don’t know what context means, look it up because I’ll be using that word a lot

This is a big subject, so I’m going to break it up in to a number of posts.  This one’s going to concentrate on Chat and emoting.

Chat

Well this one’s easy, slap a gag in the bottom’s mouth.  That’s as basic as it gets, it can get much more involved, but let’s run with that for now.

Gagging is a bondage staple.  Before we had RLV, hell second life, bottoms would emote being gagged.  It was a choice made by the bottom to respect the covenant that a gag’s in place; something from the bottom might look like this:

bottom mumbles behind her gag, shaking her head violently from side to side.

I’ll be quite frank with you, I still prefer that over what we have with a gagged bottom in RLV

bottom: mmf ppf mmom pfmm

With absolutely no emoting that green spam doesn’t really do it for me on its own.  Something like this works really well though:

bottom: mmf ppf mmom pfmm
bottom’s eyes go wide as she mumbles incoherently behind her gag

Now let’s back up a moment, here.  The top’s directing the scene by gagging the bottom, the bottom is not a passive entity in this.  The bottom reacts to the restriction in an appropriate way that empowers the top.  If the top gags the bottom and the bottom just spams the screen with green gag nonsense, that’s not doing a great deal to convey the import that being gagged has on the bottom.

Tops, you can do something about this.  Let’s say you’ve gagged a bottom and all the bottom does is spam the screen with annoying gagese…let’s pick it up from there.

RR Ballgag applied to bottom

bottom: mmf ppf mom Pfmm
bottom: pff mmmfow pfffme
bottom: mmfwo ppo mmmmow

Top sighs as she shakes her head in bemusement
Top:Silly girl, can’t understand a word your saying. Now hush up, and answer me by nodding or shaking your head.

Top proceeds to play twenty questions with the bottom.  This works on a couple of levels.  Firstly it re-enforces that the top is the one pulling the strings.  The bottom has very limited options in how she can respond.  Secondly if the bottom is not skilled at emoting, it can encourage that skill and that’s never a bad thing.

Deaf

This is an edgy one, I advise against using it with strangers. Deaf does what it says on the tin, it makes the bottom deaf to all local chat.  All the bottom will see is this:

…
…
…

Next to the name of whoever said it.  Thrilling huh?  Well yes, it can be.  It all boils down to context.  Consider the following scenario, the bottom has been bound, gagged etc.  Another party comes along, someone who’s a participant in the scene.  In the days before RLV what would happen with skilled RPers is something like this:

Top roughly manhandles bottom, inserting ear plugs in to bottom’s ears, rendering bottom deaf.

Top leans in to Top’s Buddy, and talks quietly with him; neither Top’s voice of or Buddy’s voice are comprehensible to Bottom.

And the conversation between Top and Buddy would take place in IM.  There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s good RP.  The effect is somewhat spoiled though if this is happening in a public place and the bottom can hear all the chit chat that’s going on around non-participants.  That’s where RLV comes in.

Mute

It’s arguable I should have covered this under the section all about gags, however if you’ve ever tried to totally silence someone (or yourself, you pervert) then you’ll know that it’s next to impossible to silence someone completely.

What would work is locking someone in a soundproof helmet, such helmets exist in SL.  Speech and hearing are facilitated by microphones and speakers; that’s one of the few occasions I’d mute a bottom’s chat.

Emotes

Emotes cannot be completely curtailed with RLV, they can be truncated to 15 characters.  The question is why would I as a top want to limit a bottom’s emotes?

For me the circumstances that this may happen are possibly amongst the most contextual of any RLV restriction.  It goes against what I generally want from a bottom; good feedback through RP.

Off the top of my head, here’s an example where it may be appropriate to truncate emotes.  Let’s say I’ve transformed someone in to a statue.  Well there’s a reason to mute and deaf someone perhaps, maybe just mute.  Deaf/mute would be incredibly boring.  Consider if the bottom is a  wordy emoter, you might have something like this:

Bottom struggles to move but finnds that her body is rigid with no movement possible.  She panics, wondering what is to become of her, only able to hear the voices around her but unable to even moan.

Now as a bit of narrative prose, that’s not too bad but in the context of the scene, is it appropriate?  When’s the last time you walked past a statue and managed to discern that sort of information from it?  No, me neither.  Now ideally my bottom knows to keep quiet and to not emote, but it may pay to truncate emotes just to re-enforce the point.

All that said I have a general dislike for truncating emotes, I don’t allow it on myself and would need a very good reason to do it to a bottom.

Special case: Chat redirection (renaming)

Gagging works by redirecting local chat and garbling it, chat redirection.  It does have another use, though, particularly useful in de-personalisation scenarios.

Some devices such as the Krystal Klaarrs Iso-Helmet, the Mo Renamer and the DD remnamer, allow for either the top or the bottom to change the name associated with chat.  Imagine 3 avs all dressed identically and all speaking with one voice, a true hive mind.  It can be quite disconcerting

Recently I’ve become aware of polarizing attitudes with respect to RLV. There are some out there who deride it as being a crutch, replacing RP, being a tool of lazy dominants and overall detrimental to BDSM.

To an extent this is understandable, I’ve seen some appalling uses of RLV. Then again I’ve seen appalling uses of motor cars, bicycles, hammers…see where I’m going here?

It’s not the tools you use, it’s how you use them. Now I’m not setting myself up and an authority on RLV and how it can be used as a tool to enhance your SL BDSM experience; this is how I do things though.

Before I get to that, though, some defining of terms.

RLV is a tool for bondage and control, so I”m not going to be talking doms and subs, I’m going to be talking tops and bottoms. Domination and submission is a completely different subject and RLV will not help you there. It can enhance activities surrounding D/s, but if you don’t have the foundations RLV will do you no good.

Top
The top is the main protagonist of the scene. I use the term top specifically because it has little to do with domination. One can still be submissive i nature and in act yet still be a top in a scene. This is an important distinction because bondage can have absolutely no bearing on D/s, some of us just like bondage.

The top is the pilot for the ride. It’s the top’s job to control the environment for and around the bottom and that leads us nicely to the…

Bottom
Just as a top needn’t necessarily be dominant, a bottom needn’t necessarily be submissive. What the bottom does do though is surrender some control to the top of the scene. The bottom essentially straps in and allows the top to take him or her for a ride.

That does not mean that the bottom’s role is a passive one, oh no. I don’t know many tops who like unresponsive bottoms. The bottom’s role is to react, respond give the top something to work with. It’s a bit of a balancing act for the bottom as there is a risk that topping from the bottom may occur; I’d go in to that in more detail but I’m trying not to lose focus.

Hi, I’m Shuggi. I’m an opinionated fetishist, I love latex, locks, hoods and all manner or kinky things.

I’ve been writing for some time now over at my blog, aptly named “Shuggi’s Blog” I’m flattered to have been invited here as a contributing author/editor.

What I hope to bring to this site are my opinions on BDSM in general and how some of  the technologies, particularly RLV, can be used to further the experience in SL.  I’m of the firm opinion that BDSM is 80% in the head.  While future posts will appear both in the main feed my past works can be found here.  Future posts will appear in both.

My own blog?  Well I’m hoping to take that in a more personal direction.

Yours, most likely in latex,

Shuggi

Kinkster Munch, June 20 11AM
Topic: BDSM and abuse

When does consensual BDSM become abusive? Does it? What constitutes abuse in a D/s relationship? Can harm equal to what happens to some in First Life affect people in a similar way in Second Life? Please join our discussion of BDSM and abuse this Saturday at the Kinkster Munch.

The Kinkster Much Group meets at the Diloba Celtic Pub each other Saturday. If there is a topic you would like covered, please IM either Vannesh Cannoli or Lex Berchot. All people are welcome to listen and participate in group discussions, which are low key, and designed to foster learning and sharing. Please join us, and IM Lex Berchot or Vannesh Cannoi for an invite to the group to gain information on future meetings and topics.

Join the kinkster munch group for
updates and announcements

Hey all! I’ve been doing some thinking, and I’d like to pick up blogging again, so if you’ve missed me, good things are in store. If you haven’t missed me, well, it’s not like I’m forcing you to read this.

Here in the near future, I’d like to review the relatively new pony kit from Mesmerize Dungeon. However, before I do that, I thought I’d share a little guide to my fellow SL tinkerers.

The new MD boots are really great. They’re some of the tallest boots I’ve ever seen in SL, and they’re reeeeeeally freaking sexy. Shu got me a pair of the knee highs, and I think they’re my new favorite boots.

However, when putting together a pony ensemble, you run into a bit of a problem. The pony boots only come in mid thigh versions. While I have nothing against mid thigh, knee-high is, in my perhaps not quite humble opinion, so much sexier. However, the pony boots have some things that the knee-high fetish boots don’t; namely, the training scripts (like the MD ballet boots), and some pony walk animations that I think are practically worth the L$750 all on their own.

This got me thinking: is it possible to move the scripts around? These are both from the same designer, after all. I put down the L$750 for a pair of pony boots and began tinkering, and it so turns out, ladies and gentlemen, that it is, and it’s not all that hard either.

It’s basically just a straight inventory swap: rez a copy of one of the right-foot pony boots, copy its inventory to your inventory, then rez a copy of the fetish boots and clear it’s inventory, then drop the contents of the pony boot into the fetish boot.

HOWEVER, there are a couple scripts you will want to be careful of:

plugo-color: This is the script that handles the coloring of all the various parts of the boot. Due to structural differences in the boot, I’m assuming that the pony boot version of this script will not work on the fetish boot. You will want to keep the fetish boot’s copy of this script, and not move the pony boot’s version.

kinky boot r: As far as I can tell, this script controls communication between the two boots, the left boot having a script called “kinky boot l.” The pony boots have an equivalent script called “pony boot r” that will not work with the kinky boot, even with the pony boot scripts. Again, you will want to keep the “kinky boot r” script and not copy “pony boot r.”

Once you’ve gotten everything set up, you have a pair of ultra-sexy knee high boots with the added treat of the training scripts and AO from the pony boots. No, you don’t have the ultra-cute horseshoe sole the pony boots have, but this will have to do until we can get Latexina to give us a pair of knee-high pony boots. Personally, I’d also like the pony boots to not only be knee-high, but have MD-cuffs compatible cuffs on them like the ballet boots have.

Anyway, talk to you all again soon! Hopefully I’ll have a full review of the MD pony gear put together here soon!

Love,

- Vel

P.S.: This has been cross posted from my blog, Kinky Kitten Kaboodles.

Subbie Union presents:

.
The Kinkster Munch

 

 

.

Please join the Kinkster Munch group for our first BDSM themed discussion event this coming Saturday!  Vannesh Cannoli will give a presentation on the differences between submission and slavery, followed by general response and discussion.  All folks are welcome, whether a long time in the scene, just starting, or just interested!

The Kinkster Much Group meets at the Diloba Celtic Pub each other Saturday.   If there is a topic you would like covered, please IM either Vannesh Cannoli or Lex Berchot.  All people are welcome to listen and participate in group discussions, which are low key, and designed to foster learning and sharing.  Please join us, and IM Lex Berchot or Vannesh Cannoli for an invite to the group to gain information on future meetings and topics.

Location: Diloba Celtic Pub.
When: Saturday 23 May 2009
Time: 11:00 AM SL Time.

See also the announcement here:
If you want to join `The Kinkster Munch‘ Group, you can click the link.

Hope to see you there!

Vannesh Cannoli & Lex Berchot

Well for the past couple of days I have been playing about with my various outfits, and I came across the idea of dressing myself as a rubber doll. This is not the first time I have played around with this idea. but since I have all new toys to play with, I thought it was time to revisit this topic:

The is the four different outfits below:
(please click on each photo, so you can see the outfits
in up close and personal detail)

Basically most doll outfit consist off at least a POC catsuit, Fairlight boots and gloves, a *Kas* Corset and Chastity belt, the Hair is also got from ER and can be changed to suit your fancy.

The pink latex doll is probably the most shocking for everyone, as I don’t do pink that often, but I think it’s tastefully enough. The real extra here is the Scorpion Gas mask [1]

The Red latex doll is wearing the lockable ER hood. Sadly this does not come with scripts or a HUD but it’s delicious in the way it looks. I love the detail of the little heart shape locks.

The Bane / Black latex doll is the most basic of outfits and yet perhaps the most evil as well. Because with the bane helmet set to severe settings, it could make life basically pretty hard to live.

The blue latex doll is the least restrictive one. No isolation features, just a tight latex hood which actually leaves the mouth and eyes open. Granted that means you could use it for a whole level of others toys such as gags. etc.

I was thinking of putting a picture here of me as a pony, but I am going reserve that for another blog post. Still if something like that is your interest there is still ways to let me know.

I am going ask you to vote please which outfit do you like best, and leave a comment. Which outfit of me as a rubber doll do you like best, which outfit would you like to see me walking around in. If rubber dolls aren’t your thing, just vote for ‘Other’ and leave a comment what kind of outfit you would like to see me in.

I might pick a random winner for something, from the comments. IF I do and what it will be, I will let you know.

There is a poll running on my blog. So please please please [2] head over there and:

V O T E !!

[1] – Yes I know the name changed, I can’t remember it. bad lexi!
[2] – Yes, I am begging here