Thursday, November 20, 2008

Why Steelhead doesnt Have a Bordello

Lunar and Tensai are now managers of Steelhead. They have inherited a sim with quite a few problems that perhaps they didnt count on. For one thing... these builds. They are a Lot of prims. Steel was an old school SL builder. They seem to toss prims at everything in the quest for detail. It looks great, but theres no prims for anything else. Soon one starts to wonder if we need all these primmy benches and why is the railing all the way up there a million prims when an alfa rail will do fine all the way up there? detail. Its a kind of hubris in a way. Soon, one by one, the old builds started to be replaced. A big green warehouse got turned into what is now the docks. The stores across from the hotel turned from ramshackle huts into victorian storefronts. The place was just in the very beginning of turning from a backwoods hicktown into something like Seattle. Often these simple builds would be replaced by something more elaborate and detailed and be as many or less prims than before... the sim's prim stash was building up... At that time you Had to have at least 1500 prims always available for the sim to remain stable. Dont ask me why.... this is SL...we just deal with it. But this meant that we wanted to free up as many prims as possible.

Go back in time to when sys was still manager of SH. Near my Homestead Plot was the bordello...parted by one parcel. Sys had let me put a garden in that little plot between us. I thought it would be nice for the ladies to have a snuggle garden nearby . It was tiny, but it was lovely and sweet. Near the end of her reign, she had asked me to be the madam of the place. Now, i realize i have a pretty avatar, and i realize that i can cyber like few others. But i'm a builder. If i'm not creating i'm not happy. As well as madam is basically a paper pushing role. I have no time for such an undertaking, nor the inclination if i did, so i respectfully declined. However... two weeks later i was getting notecards of ladies schedules. I IMed them back"...um...why are you sending me your schedule? Its none of my business what your doing..."
They had been informed i was the new madam. I did not take this information very well...as i had Clearly and in no uncertain , if polite, terms declined. I told them all they were misinformed. I hope i was kind as i was certainly not mad at them. And i pinged Sys. And told her that i am Not the new madam... please tell the girls so that i dont get any more notecards. So i have refused the position of Madam twice.

Well, now we didn't have Sys... and the bordello was quiet... a prim whore in a most literal way. It was a nice build for sure, and was Steelwolf's pride actually. But there were a LOT of prims in it... a 57 prim sofa, the bar was 40 or more... real stairs as there was no sculpty back then and ramps of course wouldn't do... and NO one was using it.

One of the girls stepped up and said she would do it... Emilly. Hating to see the old institution die, Emilly thought she'd take over the Madam position. Lunar said Fine, i will make you a new bordello. and the old place went poof. prolly back into steelwolf's inventory, freeing up close to a thousand prims. It took Lunar a good solid month to make that build. And when it finally dropped, it was a kind of masterpiece. An eclectic Victorian/Japanese mix, Large and with lovely staircases, an upper balcony, and an oriental roofline and floor plan. Victorian woods and walls. A unique and really a lovely build. Much larger and about 200 prims less. He dropped it on a totally different lot and there it sat... for a month... and another ... and another... 6 months go by and there still isn't a single person working there or using it really. Emilly had a rezz day party for herself there once. Nothing before or since.

OK, now, it took Lunar a Whole month to build it... that time could've been used to get the TP system, the beds, the hot tubs... the what all. I didn't understand why she didn't hit the ground running, opening relatively soon after it was dropped. Finally i asked in a town meeting "when is the bordello gonna open or is it gonna lay there sterile for ever? cuz ... you know... Its been a whole half a year." That was the idea in old steelhead. The bordello raked in the cash from Caledon gentlemen and helped pay tier and assuage rent to keep it down. This plan really apparently doesn't work, as Katt sure paid a LOT of tier. And while it was a hell of a lot better than it was now that Lunar n Tens were handling the sim., still, a huge dead plot wif a lovely build bringing in Nothing, doesn't crunch.

Needless to say my big mouth opened a HUGE can of worms. Em shot me dagger eyes, but i simply shot them back (please). The sheriff had to call order to the room. Lunar was very upset with me and our friendship went thru a big bump. He felt i was undermining his job as manager. He pulled me out of his profile, and i haven't been put back as of this posting. i maybe never will. But in the end Emilly did admit that she didn't have time for it and very unfortunately, the new bordello went poof back into Lunar's inventory, and the DeCostas moved in, dropping a lovely Victorian there.

Lunar and i are still very very dear friends, as he does understand that i had the sim's and really primarily Katt's interests at heart..and that i in no way meant to disrespect him as a manager. But perhaps it was a wake up call we all needed. And sometimes doing or saying something you feel has to be said isn't always easy, and sometimes not appreciated until much later. And there probably was a better way for me to handle it or to speak out too.

And that is why there is no bordello any more in Steelhead, when Steelhead used to be The place to go for that.

Steelhead, My Home

One day a RL friend of mine, Steelwolf invited me into SL, because he knew i would take off creatively in here. He brought me to his sim Steelhead. At that time Steelhead was a rather simple sim. Hardly any trees. Builds were very blocky. It was set in and around 1850-1890 Pacific Northwest, frontier-ish kind of feel. He gave me a plot by the big hotel. It sucked cuz there was a Huge Red Wall out front of my door. But it was free and i was a newbie, and didnt know better anyways yet. I still have this parcel, tho i pay rent on it now, and its got warm fuzzy feelings for me. It was my first substantial gift in SL, and i have to admit i cherish it... even with the Big Red Wall. Now however that wall is a stunning bit of Pesephone Texturing, full of architecture and lovely windows. The sim is totally different now, tho set in the same era. And this is the story of how Steelhead became the sim it is at the date of this or these posts.

Steelhead Main is owned now by Katteryn Severin who at that time was Steelwolf's RL gf. She paid for the sim in all ways, supplimented such as she was by Steelwolf's building and rental spots. She still is financially responsible for Steelhead Main, The reason Steelhead exists at all is because of this utterly lovely person. You will find fewer sweeter people than Miss Severine of Steelhead.

As i said, Steelhead was a rather simple sim at the time. I was impressed with the builds, but by current standards they were rather simple. They were well made however. Steelwolf is a most excellent prim layer. And he and i sat at puters side by side for several weeks building and doing SL things. So i learned to build with a premier at that time builder by my RL side, an invaluable thing in learning how to deal with the frustrations that can ensue with SL building. Soon i had a cute house on my parcel and a sort of sand box to build in... i was incessant and constant...hooked... and became very good rather quickly. But only at prim laying. I didnt know how to use scripts or make textures or SL clothes of any quality.

But back to SH (typin that out all the time is getting Old!)

Things with Steel and Katt finally fell apart. It was a long time coming, but Steel had an SL lover that he ended up moving in with and he stepped down as manager/owner of the sim, handing over owner rights to Katt, finally. All this time she was paying for it... finally it really was hers. But now she needed a manager. No problem. Sysperia steps right up. She does help the sim for a good time. I decorated it for xmas and easter and what ever. I thought things were ok. I still got free rent due to the work i did around the sim. I thought it was all good. But i was naive. Im still not sure as to the depths of what was really going on, but apparently Sysperia never gave Katt money to assuage the tier of the sim. Katt was still paying for SH out of pocket!!

Now... this is a RL friend of mine. I was close to both Steel and Katt, and when he left, my friendship to Katt never wavered. And this person was rippin her off. Katt is not a rich woman. Not poor, but tier for a whole sim is a big hit on her wallet. Was Sys taking rent and not handing it over? Or not doing her job? A kind of witchhunt ensued, im kind of ashamed to admit, with the citizenry getting very caught up, and so she ended up stepping down. TotaLunar Eclipse and Tensai Hilra were citizens at that time, and they accepted the position of managing the sim. Since they were citizens during the uprising, they had a good idea of what needed to happen, and being two of them, felt they could do the job. Lunar at that time i believe had made a two prim mushroom. I still have a copy of it. It was the first thing he ever made.

Next chapter, How Steelhead came to not have a bordello

The Scenic Sim Castle stealing attempt

One day I was putting on a fashion show in Caledon at the lovely theater there. A woman named Janelle Tourag came along and supplied me with models and helped me get this show together at the last minute, for the nominal fee of 2k linden. Not bad... Models loved my stuff and the show was awsome, if rather sparsely attended.
She loved my creations and wanted me to have a store in her sim, Scenic, for 30% commission. Kinda steep, but it is exposure and rent i dont have to deal with so, why not. She sees the builds i have done in steelhead: the Garden and the Kokopelli stage, and she Loves them. Can i put something up in the Scenic skies? Any thing would be better... i would get a cut of every show held there.
I have a gorgeous castle that i live in, covered in custom textures i made myself and i thought... sure... i can drop that in a few minutes and itd be perfect for a fantasy sim. So i do... i drop my Russian inspired domed castle up there and open it out...make it HUGE...put in a courtyard and a victorian greenhouse... spread flowers in the upstairs garden.. its simply Stunning, immense and well less than 100 prims due to shameless use of supers. She sees it loves it and almost immediately has a show lined up for it... this is lookin not too bad at all.
Ok. She wants an art gallery on the ground... and no one seems to be able to make a thing fit there... i do in about 15 minutes. She comments that i may be a better builder than designer and im an awsome designer. (well... i have been building alot longer than ive been designing clothes...but ive been designing clothes in rl longer than i been building in sl... so perhaps... i dont know or really care.)
Soon shes asking for this...and that... a dove to use as a balloon... a huge hose to put up in the air way up and spill down... needs another store over here... soon i realize all my creative time is being sucked up into her petty builds and i still aint seen a dime. And my SL business hasnt had a new thing added since i hung out with her. Shes in IM constantly with these requests that change on the hour, so i dont build anything. i stop. And i tell her we need to renegotiate as this isnt working for me. She says i aint a team player and that maybe we should part ways... take my store and go... This gives me pause. I hadnt realized my stupid store that pays way too much commission was a part of this... so i say...yes...and perhaps i should take my castle too...No sooner were the words out of my mouth than i was Banned from the parcel. From senior scenic member to banned in a split second... i realize that because her boyfriend has insisted upon mod perms...there MAY be a way for him to get and keep my castle... i hadnt thought bout perms when i set it up and wasnt sure how they were actually... so i finagle my way back onto scenic. "we can work this out...dont be silly... my store makes scenic alot o money. We can work out payment for the castle... i dont care... im just appeasing her to get back...and it works... im back on the 'team" and fixin up the castle for this show... i reset the perms to no copy no mod so even if he manages to take it... hell have to reset it out and it will be a bitch cuz he aint all that as a builder... and he wont be able to do anything to it... it s a peice of lovely garbage to him. Some where in all this she bans her PR agent and her main grafix designer... so i realize ...this is a pattern. She does this out of hand. Talkin to these women, she does this to them all the time... I am flabbergasted but i IM her again. Im sorry. I really cant do business with a person that treats your help and associates like greifers and garbage. Im taking everything and leaving. She says, Fine. But the castle stays till over the weekend and after the show. No mention of rent for this... and i dont trust her at all. And Im thinking wow... she thinks she has me over a barrel on this... She thinks her man can steal it no doubt as she is unaware that i revoked his rights while he was offline a day ago. And she believes that i cant get it. So i send my Darling Lucian over. I tell him to take it...just take everything. He goes there... and snags the castle while Jan is on the ground. She has no idea its gone yet...then he drops down to the ground to get my store...but she already returned it... i setlle him down and tell him to get that cafe/ art gallery in front of my store... and that disappers before her very eyes... She bans him immediately but it is already WAY too late. We have everything. He pops back into my real castle and starts handing over everything he picked up. I honestly dont know or care how she handled the show she meant to hold, nor do i care. This woman is poison. There is actually quite a bit more to this story than i put in here...this is a very condensed version. But Anyone out there... beware of Janelle Tourag. She comes off as helpful and rather lovely, but soon you can see that she has absolutely no respect for people. Most often these people are by far her superior. Her PR agent and Graphix designer are both amazing women that can do better by simply dumping her dead weight. She has no creativity of her own and there for vampires it off of others, leaving them dry and empty, with her wanting more and more stuff she isnt even sure what to do with. She thought to take advantage but ended up losing one of her best selling stores and most of the other vendors that had things there. Word of this got around the sim and folks apparently started pulling out left and right. Karma's a bitch if your a bitch. S a good thing to remember. Honestly ...while it would be really really fun to watch her twist in the flames of hell... what i really want to see is this ugly bitch to get a clue...find the goodness buried under all her scabs and wants and pull it out... let it see the light of day... and find some real healing. cuz honestly ...it woulda been a nicer story if the castle stayed, and shows were put on and everyone was happy. Too bad shes just... poisonous.