Fusion Magazine - December 2014

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FUSION

issue-fourteen DECEMBER-2014

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PUBLISHER

Libby

Farleigh

LAYOUT

Libby

Farleigh

FASHION EDITOR

Daija

Arida

SENIOR WRITERS

Auryn

Beorn

Jude

Tatham

FUSION S t a f f contributors

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WRITERS

Lily Holsworthy Compe Lockwood

PHOTOGRAPHERS Autumn Ashdene Micah Kalinakov Arya Braveheart

FASHION TEAM

On this month's cover:

Photography by Libby Farleigh Modeled by Sway Dench

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Alex1985 Diabolito Drakkje Dailey Oakley Foxtrot Autumn Ashdene

NOTE-FROM-THE-PUBLISHER 6

Christmas is coming! Like most holidays it is a polarising time. Some people can’t get enough, putting the tree up the morning after Hallowe'en, others find it a difficult time, especially those people who aren’t able to be with family and friends. I consider myself someone who has a pretty good reason to not look forward to Christmas; it’s my RL birthday on the day itself. Still, I find myself looking forward to it every year.

It’s true, yes, I will be a year older, yes I’ll probably get my birthday presents wrapped in Christmas paper, yes, my dog will probably get better gifts than I do, yes, I’ll spend the majority of the day in the kitchen. But, when I’m sat in front of the Christmas ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ Special, drinking my Baileys with my 97yr old Pop Pop and the rest of my family, I am going to be grateful, and try to remember I am in the lucky minority this Christmas. I will be with people who love me, I will be warm and sheltered, I’ll have a feast in my tummy, and I’ll have the blood alcohol level of Ronnie Wood. What more could anyone ask for?

This will be the last issue of Fusion until the new year, thank you so much for your continued support of our little magazine in 2014. On behalf of everyone at Fusion... ...have a very merry Christmas! We wish you and yours safe and happy holidays.

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article by Jude Tatham & photography by Micah Kalinakov

. .thanks for giving

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As the weather turns colder, the nights darker and our summer adventures turn into distant memories, our thoughts turn to the celebrations autumn brings such as Halloween, Diwali, Christmas and for some of us, Thanksgiving.

Celebrated mainly in the United States and Canada, each year during the autumn months everyone gathers for a day of feasting and family. Said to have originated in England, this celebration was originally a day of thanks for the blessing of the harvest and the preceding year. But the Thanksgiving today would be unrecognizable to the Pilgrims attending the original 1621 harvest meal.

Now it is more of a tradition to fill up on an enormous turkey dinner and watch football, but for many it is still about giving thanks for the year gone by and hopes for the 12 months ahead. So in a nod to our readers and friends celebrating, I took off around the grid asking the immortal question “what are you thankful for?”. Interestingly, although I spoke to people from different walks of life, everyone had very similar things they were thankful for. Everyone was thankful for their friends, their family and for having them in their lives. For someone who lives in a country that generally doesn’t celebrate this tradition, I could see that Thanksgiving is really about the simple things and the people around us.

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All were going to be spending the day in a similar fashion too. Big family dinners, sitting down to watch football or a movie together, taking walks and, of course, the mass consumption of turkey. There was no mention of the stresses that come with other celebrations like buying gifts and visiting 100 different people before lunch, Thanksgiving seems to be all about simplicity.

So wherever we are in the world there is so much to be thankful for, and to all those celebrating Happy Thanksgiving. 

w ur o p yo Cho

at tree mas hrist nC

Fa o d’s ewo Ingl

rm!

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I just love interactive sims! If you are looking for a family friendly sim to get you in the Christmas mood, pay Inglewood’s Farm a visit.

You can choose your own Christmas tree, then chop it down yourself to take home!

There is also a beautiful ice skating pond, cozy cafe, and you can even pay a visit to Santa Claus and give him your list for this this beautiful set up, so make sure you pay it a visit before it poofs on Christmas Day.

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year! Lots of time and effort has gone into

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All photography taken by Libby Farleigh at Inglewood’s Farm 20

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Inverness article by Compe Lockwood & photography by Arya Lockheart

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“The loch was very flat, calm,” Mrs. McKay said in 1933 about the waters of Loch Ness. Scotland. “Then suddenly this thing came up…It was black, wet, with the water rolling off it. I yelled at my husband, ‘stop, the beast!” Eighty-one years later ‘the Loch Ness Monster is alive and well in Second Life.

Nessie bobs and weaves through the tranquil waters of Inverness City, randomly appearing to delighted visitors of a Scottish otherworld. Many come initially to see the legendary aqua-creature. They soon discover that just like its real life counterpart, Inverness City is so much more than Nessie’s nest.

“Most popular by visitor numbers is the Loch Ness Inn,” said site spokesman, ambassador, and co-creator, Magnus Brody. “Then Brody Castle, then next is people taking a journey on the train which runs round on auto, all the way round both our sims.” As Magnus and co-owner Lauraclaire Benelli will tell you: ‘See it all. Take the train.’

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The three minute ride is a picturesque overview of the land it circles. Like any real world tourist, SL visitors use the train to survey excursions when debarking. And back to the monster; don’t leave without visiting the Loch Ness Visitors Centre, a detailed replica of the real one in Scotland. “My idea was to build here at Inverness a realistic building,” said designer Shinai Ushimawa, showing the museum / display attraction. In addition to fascinating stories about the miracle or myth monster, the facility houses displays and exhibits on the land, its people, history, and geography.

Second Life Inverness City is vast. You can spend hours meandering down cobblestone streets exploring villages and quant shops. Sensible cottages and majestic castles line the path, many laid out just like its real life counterparts. Staying on course is

difficult as side streets and courtyards beckon the curious. Enjoy the countryside by day or rock the dance floor by night.

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“We have events every evening. DJs, live singers, tribute groups of Scottish bands,” notes Magnus. “There are also formal balls.” On a personal note, Inverness City, and the Loch Ness has some of the friendliest people in Second Life, glad to see you, eager to bring the Scottish world to your world. There are rental homes. Many tenants have lived here during the entire 6 years of the site’s existence.

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Permanent resident or first time visitor, a trip to Inverness is not to be missed. But be patient, when Loch Ness Monster-watching. Nessie can hold its breath underwater for 6 minutes. 

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Seasons Change article by Jude Tatham &photography by Micah Kalinakov

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I am always sad when it is clear the summer is over. Bright warm days, going outside without a jacket, and picnics in the park are replaced with dark mornings, chilly evenings and soggy slippery leaves covering everything. But then I remind myself there is so much to enjoy and look forward to in the winter months - the crisp frosty mornings, the beautiful change in nature and the many celebrations that come in the colder months such as Halloween, Thanksgiving and of course, Christmas.

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fashionistas amongst us look forward to packing one wardrobe away and bringing out their winter fashion, sporting stylish sweaters and bodacious boots. Outdoor entertainment is swapped for watching television by the fire, barbecues turn into dinner parties and swimming and surfing turn into skiing and snowboarding.

But what about the large demographic that dwell in countries that don't experience a major season change? Generally the weather is always warm for them and there is little change, however many of them wish they could experience snow and have the opportunity to wrap up warm and face the elements; there is something so festive about it. Of course those living in snowier climes have the opposite feeling and wish to burn their snow shovels and dream of dry, warm weather.

So I had a chat with a few SL friends to see if they liked this time of year, or if they preferred to curl up in a ball and hibernate.

Like me some of them were actually looking forward to all that the autumn and winter brings and the weather wasn't a problem for them. But the more outgoing of my companions said they would miss the long warm days for sports, excursions Wherever you are in the world and and summer adventures. whatever the weather, embrace the season changes and whether you love or hate it, In truth every season has its pros and cons remember there is another season just a and we all have our loves and hates. The few months away. ď Ž

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"Winter is an etching, spring a watercolour, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all."

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Stanley Horowitz

Prehistorica

article by Compe Lockwood &photography by Arya Braveheart 32

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Size matters to a reptile.

And this one matters a lot. He is a treetop tall Tyrannosaurus Rex, carnivorous, evil, and staring at me. Maybe he wants to be friends. I doubt it. It is another day in SL’s ‘Land that Time Forgot' sim called Prehistorica, the Dawns Kingdom, where dinasaurs are real in a millennium rewind.

“Many people find the bot dinosaurs to be the most striking feature of the sim,” says Prehistorica owner/creator, Wanders Nowhere. “But for me the ability to actually BE a dinosaur is the most exciting thing. People who just explore with their regular avatars will certainly have an adventure, but they're missing out on the joy of wearing a dinosaur avatar and experiencing the grid through the eyes of a prehistoric titan.”

In a way Prehistorica is a microcosm of Second Life in a pre-down of man virtual world. There are no set rules or game per say. “Mostly explore and stomp around as dinosaurs,” says Wanders. “Some role play takes place here but it's up to the individuals, there is not a set role play scenario or controlled environment for it.”

But the environment played in is one of the most realistic in Second Life.

“All of the dinosaurs are as scientifically accurate as I'm able to make them,” Wanders notes. “They are based on current theories and scaled to accurate sizes and proportions based on the skeletal drawings.” Each animal includes click-on information about the species. The owner’s goal was to make dinosaurs real, not cartoonish or fantasy, and not based on the pop culture image of movies or games.

Fred Flintstone does not live here.

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Lumbering beasts roam a pixel world, such as the horned triceratops, munching vegetation, oblivious to my presence, knowing if I threaten, it can step on me.

Pteranodons fly overhead. Plesiosaurus’ swim below, all ready to study or purchase.

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“This is a world full of dinosaurs!” says Wanders “And you can BE one! Who wouldn't want to come?” I agree. Pay $1,000 lindens for a lambeosaurus lambel, don the outfit, and you become one, ready to go toe to scaly toe with the others. Take that lizard boy.

Other reptiles ranging from cute little newts to towering monsters of dubious distinction are available for purchase in the gift shop. Then choose your jungle from one of three: Cretaceous Canyon, Fossil Beach, or Jurassic Jungle.

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Plans are being considered for making the creatures more interactive with guests.

But watching T Rex with blood-soaked teeth, crunching a victim’s bones, and gazing at me, I’m not sure I want him more interactive. 

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your zero lag event avatar

Do you like shopping events? I do! But if there's anything that can ruin the experience, that is lag.

Currently, the large amount of mesh attachments in our avatars, together with the high resolution textures that many of them use, provoke slow rez times that test our patience, not to mention all the stress over our graphics cards and viewer crashes.

All this could be alleviated if each of us stopped by events, particularly on the first days (when they're the most crowded), in an avatar prepared to use the minimum possible amount of resources.

We may think that this is not our problem and that people should upgrade their machines.

But the truth is that we do not know if people could actually upgrade their machines, or if their slow connection could be upgraded to a faster one. We don't know. But we know this: with a little collaboration on our side, we will be contributing to improving everybody's SL experience, including ours, being smoother when visiting crowded places, such as shopping events.

A very easy way to do this, which will make of you the lowest lag avatar possible, both from the script side and from the mesh/textures side, is creating an outfit that will make us completely invisible, without attachments. Outfits have a great advantage: using them is immediate. We don't have to look in our inventory for all its parts, we only have to wear the outfit, to replace our current one. How do we do all this? That's what we explore now.

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First of all, we may want to save our current outfit. Click on the Appearance button.

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This opens a window. Then move your mouse to the bottom of the window that opens, and click the down arrow next to Save As.

Give your outfit a name and click OK.

Now, detach everything you're wearing. If you don't know what you're wearing, you can access to the WEARING tab of your inventory.

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Then right click over each item, and either Detach (if it's an object) or Take Off (if it's a clothing layer). Beware that we are not able to take off our skin, head base, eyes and shape. Our avatar will always be wearing one of these items, the rest are optional. If you're a Firestorm user, you may want to leave the bridge attached. It's not going to be an issue for scripts lag.

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We could now look for an already done completely transparent alpha layer, but let's take this opportunity to learn how to create our own. First, close the Appearance window, and open your Inventory. Locate the Body Parts folder, right click with your mouse over it, and select New Clothes: New Alpha Mask.

Rename it as something like Full Alpha, and Wear it. Once worn, right click on it, and Edit.

You will see a window like this:

Making a full alpha is the simplest case, for we don't have to drop any textures on these boxes. All we have to do is tick all the checkboxes, like the next picture shows (we'll see our avatar vanishing as we tick boxes), and then hit the Save button at the top of the window.

Once we've done this, we save this outfit as we've learned before, giving it a name as Invisible - Ready for Events (or anything along these lines that makes sense to you).

Whenever we want to wear it, all we have to do is open up the Appearance window, right 44

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click over the outfit, and select Wear - Replace Current Outfit.

This will immediately replace our outfit, and we'll be ready to visit the event, causing the least lag possible to other avatars, and of course, to ourselves.

Share this with your friends, and help events be more lag-free places!

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See you in the next issue. Enjoy your SL. ď Ž

FUSION COVER MODEL article by Jude Tatham photography by Libby Farleigh

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Sway Dench

Our cover star this month is the designer and creator of Sway's home, hobby and garden store, and the creator of the infamous Cookie Bear, Sway Dench.

When did you first start playing in Second Life and what drew you to this virtual world?

Ironically it wasn't even my idea to start SL. Back in 2007 one of my RL customers was thinking about advertising his company in SL and wanted me to check it out and see if it would be the right thing for him. Well, as it turned out, it was not the right thing for him, but for me!

Sway's is a charming and unique store, where do you get your design inspiration from?

There is not one particular thing that inspires me. Watching a movie, driving in the car, meeting with friends - everything can be inspiring. I do think I have my own way of doing things, for example if I take photographs, paint a picture, or if I create things in SL I often catch myself using the same colour shades. I always think I need to change it next time, but I end up using the same colours again.

The Cookie Bears seem to be a design passion of yours. What prompted you to start making them?

A long time ago I had a little plush bear in RL and I took him to different places to take photos. I thought it would be so fun to have them actually do all these things in SL. They were a huge part of my SL business, however over the years it changed 48

and I focused more and more on home and garden items. I also removed all the non mesh items from my store, but the Cookie Bears stayed as I think they deserve to be in my store forever.

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Who do you admire in Second Life and why? Do you have a virtual hero or mentor?

There are so many creative and talented people in SL and I respect and admire them all. My virtual heroes are all the awesome people who make SL the place it is. The builders, scripters, animation makers, event organizers, bloggers, and of course Linden Labs. Without all of them we would not have an SL. If you had to leave SL, how would you like to be remembered?

Store website - http://www.sway-dench.com/ Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/people/swayland/ Plurk - http://www.plurk.com/SwayDench

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First of all I do not want to leave SL, I want to still be here creating things when I am 80 years old (if I live that long and still can hold a mouse!). If people remember me at all, I hope it will be in a good way. Maybe they will think of the Cookie Bears or the Advent Calendar, maybe they have a piece of furniture from me they like a lot and keep it over the years in their home. You know that feeling when you move to a new place and it feels strange until you add little touches that make it feel like home - I would say I'd like to be remembered as someone who was part of that. ď Ž

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Fashion Editor N O T E To ALL of my fellow fashion fans, have an amazing yet safe holiday season! Eat tons and tons and have a blast with your family and friends.

This month is the same line up as what we had last month!! BUT!! I’m soooo excited because we are about to revamp our section within the next month and I cannot tell you all how ecstatic I am to bring you some serious newness. So please sit tight,

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be patient and some more awesomeness will grace these pages.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me in world or via email, daijaarida@gmail.com

blogger's corner

By Alex1985 Diabolito

December is here and it's time for all kinds of cozy goodies. SL designers are releasing all kinds of coats, jackets and sweaters for their winter collections so I picked up a few to show off.

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Hair: Curly (Mens Dept November) from Tableau Vivant Glasses: ace.shades from ieQED Jacket: Chilton (Mens Dept November) from ColdAsh Pants: Tapered chino (Mens Dept November) from Milklunch

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Hair: Curly (Mens Dept November) from Tableau Vivant Coat: Mr Gloom Coat (Mens Dept November) from Tee*fy Pants: My preppy pants from Monso 54

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Coat: Can You Hear My Heart Caramel from offbeat Skirt: Suede Pencil Skirt in Black from GizzA Shoes: Comfy Boots in Coal from [Miseria] Skin: Lauren from Glam Affair Hair: Aida from TRUTH HAIR

Clutch: Folded leather clutch in tan from ISON Scarf: WoolScarf in Zigzag from *COCO*

Styled, modeled, & photographed by Drakkje Dailey

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GET THAT STYLE

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LOOKS OF THE MONTH

Photographed by EmilianaMarie Resident https://www.flickr.com/photos/68755932@N06/ & http://www.haha-die.com/

Photographed by Rio Katana of Linx & Rio (Pearls & Pistols) https://www.flickr.com/photos/pearlsandpistols & http://pearlsandpistols.wordpress.com/

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Photographed by Anne Dakun https://www.flickr.com/photos/56686711@N08 & suicidecabinet.wordpress.com 60

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