Grace Wrigglesworth and the Safe Waters Foundation

By Bixyl Shuftan

Among the sponsors of the upcoming Fantasy Faire is the "Safe Waters Foundation," a group promoting merfolk and their communities in Second Life. Their founder and leader is GraceSWF Wrigglesworth, also known as simply "Grace." I recently went to have a chat with her.

I accepted a teleport to a location high in the air in Union Passage, the same sim where the Safe Waters' HQ is. Grace was a little different from most merfolk in that her tail resembled a shark's instead of the scaled fins many have, "Well, given your size, let's sit over here," she suggested. And we went to a certain spot in the building.

"So this is your office?" I asked her?

"It's like a private area," Grace told me, "was a build from one of the Second Life party events. I loved it so (I) asked the builder/volunteers to put it up here." Grace explained why, "People are so fascinated with mermaids and such, that there are constant interruptions when trying to do the work to keep things moving. So this is up high - hard to find and harder for people to listen in. So I can speak openly."

"Thank you so much for honoring me with this interview," Grace told me, "and honoring my difficult schedule."

I told her no problem. I asked how she came to Second Life. Grace told me, "Well I was very active in chat groups, AOL, MSN, and heard about Second Life somehow probably a person told me, and just loved the idea. (I)  came in as human of course, joined the Avilion sim ... They have a merrow group. I saw the mermaid signs here and there, and one day a mermaid swam by. I thought, 'Wow, she flew fast through the air.' I scrambled to keep up with her, and eventually found her to click on her. She started me,  isn't on much now. (I) miss her too." Grace told me she was "quite active at Avilion merrow, and shifted to a larger focus on the community as a whole." She had nothing but complements for Avillon, suggesting the Newser write about it later, "for people who like roleplay and multiple species medieval, its a wonderful sim. I adore dragons." She showed me a picture of her pre-mer days, "there I am before I molted," she told me, her term for when she changed to the type of avatar she now wears.

Noting my furred appearance, she brought up, "there are mer furs in Second Life, furry upper half. You could try being a mer, and stay furry if you wish. Lots of lower halves. Mine just happens to be shark - but we call the entire package a mermaid, or merman (as) we call (the males)." I asked her what inspired her more sharklike look. She answered, "Well ... when I started there were not a lot of choices and they were hard to find in Second Life. I first sort of accepted myself with black tails. But when I found this one - oh a year ago at least, I told people I molted. This is my true self. I don't change tails all the time. Many people do, sort of like outfits."

 Grace told me she hadn't started any of the other merfolk groups, but instead had been "trying to encourage special interests of mers, to support their development." They included a warrior group and a "Midnight Seas group for mers in non-American time zones ... they are still really struggling to find each other. ... I help if they want and if I can." She did have some help, "We have a Board of Directors. Really, a LOT of people make SWF happen, but I started it. ... am sort of the shepard." Even though it has a board, Grace felt the organization was "not formal." So when I asked for how many groups were a part of Safe Waters, she answered, "that number would be hard to come up with. ... I offer to every mer group that asks about advertising her or for us to do announcements. ... Many don't even know I watch and try to help." Others that were a part of the Foundation included "Fancy's MerFurs," "Antiquity Merfolk," "Ceteceans" - a group for whale and dolphin avatars, "Petite Mer," and "Sea Dwellers."

Grace felt, "I think the first major breakthrough we had was when the group started to grow! Safe Waters Foundation! The chat became like a social network. The worst thing for mers is they couldn't find each other. And we've just gradually added things. ... Lots of builders have stepped up and donated their time and talents, as have other volunteers, LOTS of them!" She went on to say some came forward just to take on a particular project, "I'm good at .... empowering others to explore their talents."

Grace went on, I" don't want to .... encourage anything unhealthy. You know? Balance is key. In our charter you will find a list of values. We try to keep that the spirit of things. ... The officers volunteer mostly if someone does a project or two. If they go well and the leader leads (even if the event or project failed),  an officer or myself will nominate an officer. The board votes after open discussion. One no vote and they aren't invited. (It) brakes my heart at times - but there have been some key people I've not been able to invite. (There is) no formal written description of that. It is more ..... like a plant, organic. But (it) has kept the board centered I think, and it's not me running the show, not based on my personality,  although really it is lots of my life principles in what SWF does."

Grace mentioned an episode of "Designing Worlds" in which Fanci's Deep and the Safe Water Foundation were the subject, "it takes like 40 minutes to watch, but is the history of Fanci's Deep which is another major breakthrough in the mer community that has really helped. For Fanci's Deep - I'm the liaison mer for that sim. I give a long interview there, and you meet Aley. Aley is a very key figure - she's not been online much for awhile. (She) will only make things for free, will not talk voice, but she linked up the owners of this sim and me." I asked if this was Aley the noted builder of Second Life, whom the Newser has written about a few times. Grace mentioned, "Yes. She had the vision. I'm so sad she's not been around for awhile. Maybe she needed a break." I asked her, "Has this been the longest she's been offline?" Grace answered, "As far as I know yes." She went on about her, "Oh just can't say enough how much we want her back, for her humor, her honor, her honesty, her generosity ... so if you ever speak to her, or get messages to her, she has 200% of my loyalty and support. She has done miracles here. The owners Mark Twain and Nber Medici of course are part of it. But I think she gave the idea to them (pirate ships on top and mer community below) and SWF to anchor it so to speak."

Grace told that there was one concern, "as our goal is to foster communication amongst the mer community, I was a little worried bout SWF being seen as favoring one mer community over another. But I think we achieved it by keeping the focus of the overall umbrella of mer community in Second Life. We support all mer sims, and designers, as we can, and if they want of course." She went back to Aley, "she is the heart of this place. You can see the beauty she created in the video." The video showed Fanci's Deep as named for Fanci Bebbe, who passed away in 2013 and had a memorial set up in her honor.

Grace mentioned the upcoming Fantasy Faire, "We are a sponsor at Fantasy Faire this year, for the benefit of the Relay for Life ... the Fantasy Faire will include a mer area this year. (It's) kind of interesting, it crosses two of their sims, with swimable waters. I'm excited - FF has been great to work with." The Fantasy Faire mentioned Franci's Deep on their website recently.

Grace mentioned they've been doing some advertising, "Everyone is a potential mer, so we try to do marketing outside the existing mers, in addition to fostering communications amongst. And then (the) new campaign we are just starting is Save Our SL Seas." She mentioned their Headquarters had some ad spaces available, We offer the adboards very very cheaply so owners can keep the info current. It was awful trying to keep notecards up to date. That is how we started sharing information. Now we suggest people stroll the headquarters and click on adboards. I mean - who can't pay 25L a week? And funds go to our SWFAccountant and used for SWF projects It's like a mer catalog, though many just won't advertise - want me to give free space."

I switched to my Anthroxacty anthro shark about this time, which got Grace's attention, "Oh look at you!!! Lovely." She mentioned "Tithis offers something similar," calling it Tideborns, "we'd love to get them to put up adboard downstairs, those have been a huge breakthrough."

Grace then invited me to see their "transformation center ... it is so hard working with people trying to transform." I asked about it, and she told me, "we've been calling it the changing room, (but) people seemed to think it was for people without homes to change, which is fine if used for that. We wanted newbies to have one place to find everything needed." She then began swimming, "let me take you to the normal old entrance. (It) was terrible trying to tell them how to get there too. So I took (our) landmark and renamed it our 'Transformation Center' *giggles* "

We headed to Union Passage (166/231/4), appearing in a building. "This is our headquarters," she told me. We were next to a desk with a cube, "New Mer start here," which had a notecard for newcomers to the place. Grace went on, "across from that desk is a wonderful concept: transformation kits. You can buy for 10L, keep in your inventory, and give to a newbie. I don't always have time to stay and help. So I wanted to have those, and thought might as well make them publicly available. Anything to make it easier to try mer."

We went up to a board, Grace saying, "Here is information on Fanci's Deep under the sea." Then we went out to the front of the building to what looked like a wooden door under a rock arch at Union Passage (177/227/1), "this is the changing room." Clicking the door open revealed a teleporter, "click again to go up." We both went up to the location, which had two rooms with posing stands and closeable curtains. On the other wall, there were two freebie tails, a blue one for males, a pink for females, and instructions for wearing those. Grace stated, "Many mer stores offer free mer tails as a major promotion tool. So we try not to compete but are trying to increase the size of their markets. But some ..... have some friction there, I know. It's all about balance."

Grace mentioned the "major officers with SWF are Cynthia Main, Zohee Goldshark and Celtic Infinity. (I) call them senior managers. I think you can see the other officers in the group if you join. They work a LOT. She also mentioned Wlfric Gausman (Wulfric Foxdale), "created an entire sim and put SWF HQ into the middle of it. That was our first involvement in a sim. He was so gracious (Wlfric was) when we were offered the opportunity to move SWF HQ to Fanci's Deep. We make a good anchor for mer. Anything you can do to help people find the mer option would be appreciated. I think people are not aware of the awesome underwater side of Second Life." She suggested one place to check out, Two Moons Paradise, "they bring a lot of mers into the world, huge supporter of Fanci's Deep ... they have land and underwater sections, a lot of international involvement."

It was about then that Grace had a meeting to go to, and we swam our separate ways.

So if you're interested in joining the merfolk of Second Life, even if for part of the time, the Safe Waters Foundation is a place you can go to with a number of groups under them with various themes, and an ocean to swim around in.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Union%20Passage/166/231/4

Bixyl Shuftan

The Oldbie Project – Aley aka Arcadia Asylum

By DrFran Babcock

There are some residents in Second Life™ that fill me with awe and admiration. Arcadia Asylum is one of those people, and her legacy is sprinkled across the grid in the plethora of builds that bear her name. Almost everything that she has created is available free and full perm. Everyone is encouraged to rip apart her masterpieces, change, improve, use parts, and admire. Arcadia left Second Life™ some time ago, but has always been around with some name or other. She is currently using the name Aley.

SLNewser’s very own Gemma Cleanslate wrote twice  about the Aley’s LEA build in April of 2012 (http://slnewserdesign.blogspot.com/2012/04/sea-of-aley.html  ) and the Arcadia Asylum library in August of 2012 (http://slnewserdesign.blogspot.com/2012/08/arcadia-asylum-library.html  ). She is compelling and cannot seem to stop building. Her current build is the underground amusement park: Seaview, that I have visited already several times. There is a lot to do there, and I had to come back a few times to take it all in. I brought friends each time, and they delighted in the offbeat humor of the constructions. At the urging of my co-worker Gemma, I asked Aley if she would consent to an interview, and she was more than gracious in agreeing. When I first teleported into Aley’s underwater sandbox, she was playing with a build of a shrimp boat. A few visitors came and went to pay regards during the interview. Aley was always friendly and welcoming. She admitted that she could chatter on forever, and that seemed to be what happened. The interview that follows is candid and interesting. Was she pulling my leg…I am not sure? I will report what I witnessed, as that is my responsibility as a reporter. 

Join me as we visit with a Second Life™ original:

Aley: This version (of the shrimp boat) will be able to net scoop stuff and, there’s the nets deployed. I'm going to sail around the Blake Sea and catch more mermaids.

SL Newser: It is common knowledge that you are Arcadia ?

Aley: Yups.  No need to look for the name; just follow the thousands of full perm freebies.

SL  Newser: When did Arcadia come here?

Aley: Oh, Arcadia wasn’t my first account [smile]. I first heard of SL in the late 90s when it was barely in Beta. Linden Lab was getting some web news and real life news about them trying to start a virtual world. Well, SL sounded like a huge dot com scam deluxe: “Pay exorbitant rates to rent server space and call it land.  So, I followed SL before it was open to the general public. I wasn’t about to “pay” to look at it. When SL opened free accounts, I started one. I think my first account was named Bubbles. I goofed around a while till that account was fried by glitches. You could totally loose your account due to the bugs back then

Hmmm, let’s see when I started the Arcadia account I was miffed and let some time lapse. I started hanging out at the old Calleta Hobo Info Hub, and got into open sourcing there.

Eventually, I got sick of SL bugs and semi-quit for two months. When I tried to log back in LL had deleted my whole inventory. The eventually restored it, but I was pissed off,  and stayed away as best I could. Back then Linden Lab was scrubbing account data if they were dormant for a month. Those were the wild old days in SL

The whole grid would semi regularly be crashed offline by organized griefer attacks.

Anyone could fart and crash a whole sim offline for hours. Building stuff was tricky, as a crash and rollback would even remove back up copies from your inventory. SL had deadly bugs for a decade, but is way more stable now.

At this point we were visited by Heather, a mermaid, and she hung around for a while begging Aley to write a book of her life. Aley said it would never happen. Instead, we started talking about gender in Second Life™.

 Aley: I use pretty gender neutral avatars. At my age I'm more asexual than anything

Heather: Asexual is good. Less time fending off idiots.

Aley: It unclutters alot of life.

SL Newser: Well, to change the subject…why do you offer so much for free?

Aley: I was retired all through the SL business, and wanted nothing to do with clients and stuff anymore. I have social security and a small pension, and I live like a church mouse.

SL Newser: How did you learn to build so well, Aley?

Aley: Oh, I was a CAD engineering draftsperson for probably 20years, so I could fart out 3D models. My whole family was into construction. My youngest sister is a professional welder. My dad was an engineer at a huge contracting corportation that did the NASA contracts.

SL Newser: What was your favorite build from those days?

Aley: I have no favorite builds, just favorite projects. I live for big projects. The old slum city project was great (http://spiritofarcadia.wordpress.com/a-slum-city-video/ ). The sim owner eventualy turned the sim into a BDSM porno sim, so I deleted it all. As if SL doesnt have enough of those already. I had anger management issues back then, but I’m better medicated now. Better living through psychiatric pharmacology. Current therapist hasn’t a clue what to do with me. How to you write a treatment plan for a nutcase with no common craziness issues.

SL Newser: Awwwwww. I am not going to write about this…

Aley: Please go ahead. I was never in the closet about being a mental patient. I want it out and known that you can do pretty well with your life with mental illnesses, if you get help and work with it.

I lost track, what was I rambling about?

SL Newser: What 3D software do you use?

Aley: Now? SL is my main 3D software these days

SL Newser: So, you are not making mesh, but using sculpts ?

Aley: I have fiddled with stuff like Maya, etc., but LL punishes mesh. You get more vertices with sculpts then equivalent mesh, and no size penalties. I use a dozen in world tools. Here’s the thing: I worked for around 20 years hunched over auto CAD and, I’m NOT going back to that hell. In SL I have direct interaction. I can model and play and chatter, and best of all get direct feedback and help. This isn’t a job, it's a social hobby to me. Little, if any of my work here is truly original. I pester everyone around me for ideas and bits and pieces. As i don’t sell anything and give it all away free, few have any qualms about playing.

SL Newser: So, tell me about your current build, Seaview, the underwater amusement park. What was the inspiration ?

Aley: Thats all Ardour Allen's idea. You know about the old Privateer Space Project? (for more information about the Privateer build read my friend Lauren’s aricles : http://npirl.blogspot.com/2008/01/aleys-privateer-island-part-i.html and http://npirl.blogspot.com/2008/01/aleys-privateer-island-part-ii.html )

SL Newser: Yes, in fact, a friend of mine asked me to ask you what happened to it ?

Aley: LL happened. That ended during M. Linden’s mis-management. The idea behind it was to fully utilize a whole sim, to build up to the sim ceiling. You see, people in general think in two dimensions—out of sight; out of mind. I wanted to experiment with making something that would force people to think up and down too. A few caught onto the idea. There was a place called Starbase Alpha, or something that was based on the concept after I worked it out. 

SL Newser: Thanks.

 Aley: The Blake Deeps is 13 sims and owned by Hollywood Rentals. They own and manage about 200 sims. Well, I started hanging out with the local pirate and sailing community about three years ago, and rented that plot where Flotsam Town (another Blake Deeps build by Aley) is located. I started guerilla decorating the seabeds in these sims, meaning the owners dident know what i was up to.

Setting up Flotsam in Blake Diego boosted its traffic a dozen fold, and the little sneak stuff i did here boosted general boating traffic.

SL Newser:  So, they kept you.

Aley: When Fanci passed away and her properties were at risk the main owner of Hollywood Rentals bought them up, and made four new open water sims named after Fanci. This time they asked me to decorate the place on purpose [laughs].

The owners wanted to expand from just pirate and age of sail theme to the mer community, so we started a crazy experiment to see if you could combine rentals underwater with events on top of the water, and keep waterway clearance for sailing

Ninety percent of these sims are homesteads with a quarter of the prim allotment. I developed ways to develop homesteads by pirating LL owned ocean sims. There’s a glitch, or was,  where some rollouts could reset auto return to zero. That made it extra fun (smile).

The average prim counts for all the underwater stuff in each sim is around 200 prims. That leaves 300prims for passing ships, boats, and planes, and the rest go to the renters. Detailing 80% to 100% of a sim wide seabed in 200 prims is a major challenge. The Blake Sea ocean homestead sims use around 1,000 to 2,000 prims for their seabeds, and you have seen how barren they all look

Well, Mark (Hollywood Rentals) wanted to bring in mermaids, and I was the only one around who was developing homestead seabeds, so I volunteered to get in on this. We dragged in the Safe Waters Foundation to help with community building

SeaView Park is the result of being totally out of ideas for what more underwater stuff to make. I tried to make an arctic underwater area but ran into all kinds of problems, so I gave up. Ardo (Ardour Allen) said: “Make an amusement park.”

I was desperate enough for anything, so I told Ardo to start building it. It ends up as a nice Victorian era amusement part. I managed to drag that project out to almost three months, and now it’s done.

I'm more interested in lower prim impact then perfection

SL Newser: No one complains about your work

Aley: Sure they do! I closed down at least five marketplace shops. Some folks can't compete with freebies, especially when there a fraction the prims. SL is a sort of social game. My game play is less prims and free

At this point we sort of drifted off into talking about other content creators and how scultpts were superior to mesh. At times it seemed as if Aley was impatient with me because I didn’t know enough about her body of work, which was true.

I haven’t put in all that she told me, but probably more than I should have. Aley is a remarkable person, at turns confident and proud, then a bit less so, as when she told me that the builder of the Nemo sims’ textures made hers look like crayon drawings.

There is too, too much information out there, for me to give you a list of resources. You can go and see recreations of actual builds at an Arcadia Asylum Museum. Aley herself has a marketplace store full of full perm freebies, and the grid abounds with lore and goodies all from this prolific woman.

Do spend some time learning what you can, and if you see me in Fanci’s Deep at the Seaview Amusement park, say hello.


DrFran Babcock