What I know comes from my many Second Life years of experience and observation: I'm not the quick study that people think I am. I've been around the block once or twice! What I've never been, though, in all my years of Second Life... is real. Exploring the D/s lifestyle is making me get real, now. It's making me take relationships seriously. It's making me give (and expect) a deeper honesty about human interaction. Frankly, it's carrying over into RL also. This is a very positive journey for me. Bondage is on my mind, lately, and so into the dark we go. The first landing: Captivity. The word alone conjures an adequate darkness for my taste, but it's no good (I've found) if a person can't feel it. Really
feel it.
In Second Life, I've had my senses trained to expect some pretty fine things. Not necessarily expensive, but fine in the strict sense. Craft, care, time, nothing rushed...
Shade Fantasy Outfitters gives good equipment. Good imagination. Good feeling. It has the old-world feel (built especially for Medieval and Gorean sims I expect... but any dungeon would benefit); it has the tried-and-true positions that don't look noobish in the least; and you know these aren't free. They aren't expensive, either. High quality, low cost. The pictures that result (because why bother if you aren't going to retain a keepsake for future enjoyment in a solitary moment?) give you a fighting chance for realism.
And the more that I experiment (privately) with this equipment, the more I begin to understand the idea of "virtual pain". What it represents. What it symbolizes. I begin to understand the idea of "virtual captivity", what it represents and symbolizes. I still have not got past my roleplay urges and inclinations... I have roleplayed for many years in a virtual environment and have gotten fairly good at inventing thought-provoking images (where once it used to terrify me, the idea of contributing to a play with more experienced people). I want to "get real" but I want that time to think before throwing my gambit, which roleplay affords me. And now I begin to understand what the D/s community refer to as "scening" -- it's never explicitly been explained to me but I now imagine it is a created scene, a mood built around one driving action that requires preparation, consideration, and readiness. And the scene plays out. And then there is the aftermath... I mean, "care".
My years in roleplay might reasonably serve me quite well when I get to the point where scening is available to me; if I can get REAL. Realistic props and enclosures make it work for me -- so kudos are also due Van Auster and his store
POST for being the high-quality texturing guru that makes me never want to leave my POST home. And as a final note, since we're prop-talking,
Xanxan Jervil makes phenomenal collars and cuffs with some good original animations. Submission is good with the right equipment moving my body, and the textures that make me feel the bondage-chains.
