The Magic Hour, July 2024 – click any image for full size
This magic hour is cherished by photographers and filmmakers for the quality of the warm natural light that enhances images with a dreamy, nostalgic glow. It’s a fleeting moment that many visitors find inspiring, as it casts our world in a transient beauty that’s perfect for creating emotive imagery.
– The Magic Hour Destination Guide description
It’s taken me a couple of visits to The Magic Hour in order to write about it – the first being a brief hop in mid-June, and the second at the end of the month; ergo, I’m hoping this piece doesn’t arrive shortly before the region gets a make-over – if it does, my apologies to Six (SixDigital), the region’s creator, and to those visiting and expecting to find it as described here.
The Magic Hour, July 2024
Six – along with Justice Vought – is one of the talents behind the former Oxygen region designs, which I wrote about in 2019 and again in 2021, a place which had a deserved reputation for being thoroughly photogenic. The Magic Hour is in a similar vein in this regard, offering beach-front setting backed by tall hills up to which the landscape climbs, the entire setting rich in opportunities for avatar and landscape photography.
The landing point sits midway between the east and west limits of the region and is tucked back toward the northern foothills as the start their climb to the off-region mountain adjoining them. Taking the form of a small beach house facing south towards the open sea, the landing point sits close to a large pool of clear, fresh water, the home of koi carp watched over by red-crowned crane. Beyond the pool, within its little island reached by a tree trunk bridge is a small house. I believe this might is a private residence when occupied by Six, so please keep that in mind when visiting.
The Magic Hour, July 2024
The southern waterfront is a mixed affair, partly sandy, a little scrubby and partially rocky, its western extent a grassland headland partially ringed by a breakwater. It is home to a stripped lighthouse, the grass around it well suited to grazing. On the eastern side, a low sandbar points out into the sea, the home of the wooden frame of a summer house, the wall and roof shingles yet to be placed (if they ever will be), the dedicate folds of net drapes instead providing a mottled shade for the sofa, tables and planets within.
Between the sandbar and the lighthouse, four slender fingers of rock point outwards from the shore, thin breakwaters made from large stones worn thin by the sea so they now resemble rough-edged that have been loosely stacked out into the water like thin strands. between the last of these and the lighthouse headland, the shingle and rocks have built up into area of shallows, several large grey boulders rising from the water like petrified sealions.
The Magic Hour, July 2024
Inland from the lighthouse stands a small wood. It surrounds the ruins of a chapel which in turn contain their own secrets and sense of fantasy. Beyond them, a waterfall feeds the land where deer and fae folk might be found. A trail from here winds through the tress and down to where the grass rolls back towards the sands on which the landing point sits, presenting a pleasant walk between it and the chapel.
This is a simple, relaxing setting with multiple places where people can sit and contemplate or talk, or which lend themselves to photographs. As well as the deer, water birds and horses are to be found, while am ancient stone gazebo holds another little touch of fantasy and a further place to sit.
The Magic Hour, July 2024
Finished with a gentle soundscape and environmental settings in keeping with the ide of an early morning, The Magic Hours as a quiet, somewhat enchanting visit.
Blade Runner, Brutal City, 2060 – June 2024. Click any image for full size
It’s been just over a year since I last had an opportunity to visit an iteration of Hera’s (zee9) Blade Runner-esque region designs. On that occasion Blade Runner Future Noir was the attraction, with its tight focus specifically on Ridley Scott’s seminal visual interpretation of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (see here for more); so the time was about right for a new iteration of the setting to emerge from Hera’s imagination, and sure enough – up has popped Blade Runner, Brutal City ,2060. Encompassing the familiar whilst offering some tidy little twists and turns for lovers of science fiction (and potentially obscure TV series of that genre), as well as other references, it is again a highly visual environment which spreads the Blade Runner elements more broadly, folding into it elements of Blade Runner 2049, whilst also drawing on 2012’s Dredd.
Once again leveraging a Full private region with the Land Capacity bonus, this build is perhaps the most explicit Hera has designed on the theme, in terms of overt sexual references and elements of nudity – so those of a sensitive disposition, be warned! It is also possible that, as with many of Hera’s builds the setting’s presence in Second Life might be short-lived – so if you are interested, then a visit sooner rather than later is recommended. Should you opt to drop in, be sure to use the local Shared Environment, and to enable local sounds. In addition, higher-end graphics quality is recommended for the full visual effect and, for those not running a PBR viewer, ALM must be enabled.
Blade Runner, Brutal City, 2060 – June 2024
As is common with Hera’s builds, a visit starts at a landing point removed from the main build. Here it takes the form of a subway passage with vending machines, one of which will teleport you to Brutal City, the other of which will provide an informative introductory notecard. Taking the teleport to the main setting will deliver you inside a subway car that’s just arrived at a station -another familiar Hera touch, and one I like in her designs as it genuinely gives a sense of arrival somewhere. Ignoring the crime scene, stepping off the carriage offers various routes “up” to “ground level” – which you take is up to you.
The “ground level” itself initially appears to be the familiar grid-like mix of roads (both “street level” and “elevated”) interspersed with buildings climbing up into a murky sky through which a familiar advertising airship appears to creep, surrounded by a backdrop of other tall buildings to give added depth, with everything awash in neon and advertising.
Blade Runner, Brutal City, 2060 – June 2024
Perhaps the most obvious references to the Blade Runner franchise take the form of some of the static vehicles sitting on the roads – police spinners and cars resembling Deckard’s decommissioned spinner. There’s also the edge-of-region bulk of the Tyrell Building – (as was, given this is not 2060, its towering bulk carries the logo of the Wallace Corporation from Blade Runner 2049). The latter still have interior elements to be explored, albeit on a smaller scale, perhaps then pervious iterations.
However, none of this should be taken to mean there’s nothing new to see here; Brutal City offers an engaging mix of ideas together with a skilled re-use of elements from past designs that give it an sense of the familiar whilst also being new; that time has in effect continued to move forward within the setting, and it has naturally changed even whilst absent from the grid. Thus, we are not so much visiting somewhere new, but re-visiting a place once known but now revealing its new look and feel.
Blade Runner, Brutal City, 2060 – June 2024
As to the more Dredd-leaning elements awaiting discovery, I’ll let Hera explain:
As in the Dredd movie the mega blocks are run by gangs. In Brutal City there are 3 Gangs: the Neo Punks, a sort of mixture of traditional cyberpunk with a love of Matrix black added in; the Metal Heads, kind of cyberpunk bikers and the Psycho Delics, Cyber hippies. This was really just an excuse for me to make the ground floors of the 3 Mega Blocks in Brutal City into gang block parties. The Blocks were given names of well know heavenly other worlds, probably as some in joke between the architects who knew they would become anything but heavenly over time. Paradise was taken over by the Neo Punks, Valhalla by the Metal Heads and Nirvana by the Psycho Delics.
– from the introductory notecard on Blade runner Brutal City 2060
The exits from the subway will bring you to street level fairly close to the north entrance of the Paradise Club, with one of them also just across the road from where the Valhalla rears itself skywards (and I should probably mention here that don’t be in too much of a hurry to pass through the subway’s tunnels – you might miss the door to a really cosy little jazz club – and it is not the only door leading to what might otherwise be hidden from view). Nirvana sits a little further away, perhaps content to keep a little distance between itself and the looming presence of the Brutal City Police Department headquarters as it shoulders its way up into the sky. Widening at the top to offer a spinner landing pad patrolled by a drone looking like it might have escaped the Terminator franchise and bristling antennae, the BCPD building seems to glare down on both Paradise and Valhalla in a stern warning. Like the clubs, the BCPD building can be entered and explored.
Blade Runner, Brutal City, 2060 – June 2024
All three clubs clearly share the same architectural heritage, as Hera notes; each with a party space overlooked by tiers of internal balconies rising upwards to provide access to residential apartments. While I cannot be 100% sure, I think they might also share a heritage with Hera’s last Blade Runner design, as their interiors appear to be a skilled re-working of the interior she used for the Bradbury Building. Either way, they also share similarities in club layout and features – which might perhaps give rise to further rivalry between them, members from one gang accusing those from the others of “copying” them.
Another location visitors to Hera’s past builds might recognise the Snake Pit. Once again, Zhora Salomeis not present (no surprise, given Deckard shot her), but her presence is perhaps marked elsewhere in one of the clubs. Here the Snake Pit sits within the Dram Palace, a glitzy upmarket retreat – although I could help but feel that howsoever well the barman has packed himself into his tux and dicky-bow, his is nevertheless the adult love-child of Jason Statham and Woody Harrelson 😀 .Which actually, far from being an insult to the man should actually encourage patrons to feel safe should members of any of the city’s three gangs drop in a decide to get a little rousty!
Blade Runner, Brutal City, 2060 – June 2024
Throughout the entire build there are lots of touches and elements which help cast a broad net as to what might be discovered during a visit. The BCPD building, for example, once again hosts the Rekall-style armchairs seen in Total Recall 2070 (a series that lived far too short a life), whilst screen at the front desk displays data on one Takeshi Kovacs (Altered Carbon and as played by Joel Kinnaman and the – again short-lived – Netflix series), while the metro cabs on the the street have a sense of the Johnny Cabs from 1990’s Total Recall.
Also along the streets one might find a noodle bar similar in nature to the one Deckard was seated at in Blade Runner, whilst a newsagent kiosk might be found selling the likes of Cinefantastique (the 1982 edition celebration both Blade Runner and Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan), Metal Hurlant, Starlog, what looks like Empire magazine, copies of the LA Times from 2019, all among many others (I liked the Deckard magazine series with Gaff’s famous quote as he leaves Deckard in the rain towards the end of the movie, “It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?”
Blade Runner, Brutal City, 2060 – June 2024
These are far from the only nods (I’ve not mentioned the return of the Friends Electric store (a nod to Gary Numan?) and its stock of electric sheep, for example), but then, discovering them is all part of the fun – and there are probably those I wouldn’t recognise, even if they stepped up and introduced themselves to me 🙂 . That said, one of the potentially more recognisable homages is not to any sci-fi franchise or setting, but to a physical world location – architect’s Moshe Safdie’sHabitat 67, here given a more downcast design; one which can be explored thanks to its network of connecting communal spaces, even if the apartments themselves are just façades.
All of which makes for yet another visually and aurally engaging visit – so, make the most of the time the setting is here and go pay a visit!
A Place Between the Rocks, June 2024 – click any image for full size
Sitting on the north side of Brittany, the westernmost region of metropolitan France and facing the English Channel, is the department of Côtes-d’Armor. It’s an area with an interesting geography and an equally interesting history, encompassing as it does a curious mix of being both strongly Catholic and also having a long tradition of anti-clericalism.
Brittany as a whole has a lot to commend to visitors, including within the Côtes-d’Armor, containing as it does the seaside resort of Perros-Guirec, the Castle of the Roche Goyon (aka Fort la Latte), a monument historique, and – close by to the castle – the peninsula of Cap Fréhel with its spectacular cliffs, moorland terrain, lighthouses (one dating back to the 17th century) and (now controversial, due to the wind farm location roughly 15 km off the coast) views out over the channel waters.
A Place Between the Rocks, June 2024
Côtes-d’Armor is also the location of the commune (here meaning an “administrative division” of a similar nature to something like a civic parish in the UK or a civil township in the USA, rather than a place where hippies might bliss out) of Plougrescant. Extending its thumb out into the English Channel and with the town of Plougrescant sitting at the inland end of the thumb, this area features a marvellous circular walk out and back from the town taking visitors up the eastern coastline to its northernmost tip, La Pointe du Château, and the the beginning of a fabulous rocky landscape with glowing hues, which breaks up the lowlands, with the path followed this more rugged setting back south along the western coastline. As it does so, the path by Castel Meur, a lowland peninsula with two small headlands, a lake-like body of water trapped on their landward sides.
Sitting on the more northerly of these two little headlands and overlooking the inland waters is the remarkable la Maison du Gouffre, “the house between the rocks” (and which is perhaps more widely also known by the name of the land). Remarkable, because la Maison du Gouffre is exactly what it’s name suggests: a house (cottage might be a better term nowadays) built slap bang between two outcrops of rock rising from the flatland like teeth.
A Place Between the Rocks, June 2024
Built in 1861, the house has always been in precarious position – the weather can be frequently violent – and utilises the rocky outcrops on either side as a means of protection whilst also being built so that its back faces the open expanse of the English Channel. As such, it has survived down the years, and – remarkably – has remained largely in the hands of the descendants of the original occupiers. Such is its iconic look, that over the years, the cottage was featured in a series of tourist campaigns intended to bring visitors from around the world to Brittany.
One of these campaigns used a postcard with an image of the cottage, and was so successful, it not only brought visitors to Brittany – it brought them practically to the front door of the cottage. As a result, in 2004 the owner (and granddaughter of the original owner) successfully sued for, and won, all commercial image rights over the property, preventing its use in any commercial venture without her expression permission.
A Place Between the Rocks, June 2024
As a private residence, la Maison du Gouffre is not open to visitors, but non-commercial photographs can still be taken whilst passing by, and thanks to people posting personal images on-line, etc., its fame has potentially grown even more.
However, you don’t necessarily have to visit France to witness the marvel of la Maison du Gouffre; you can currently do so right here in Second Life, courtesy of Bella (BellaSwan Blackheart), who brings us her homestead region design A Place Between The Rocks, inspired by the house at Castel Meur.
A Place Between the Rocks, June 2024
Just like its namesake in the physical world, the setting provides a scene of a largely flat landscape broken by three large outcrops of rock, the large two of which offer some shelter to the little cottage nestled between them. The cottage is, again like its namesake, a stone-built structure with shuttered windows bracketing the front door, and squat chimneys to either end of a roof from which gabled dormer windows stare out over the land and water. This is not a furnished property within, but outside has all the indications of being occupied: potted plants are much in evidence, chickens are being kept, a bicycle with a bag of groceries is propped outside of the front door, whilst a cobbled terrace to the rear of the place shows signs of use as it sits under a wooden pergola.
No lake faces the front of the house, the general design of the setting suggesting it is an island unto itself (with a smaller one sitting just offshore as a study point for an artist), but the low wall surrounding the original has its digital sibling here. Rich in heather and wild grass, the land has the feeling of being both windswept and at times pounded by angry storms, the island-like nature of the entire setting merely adding to its sense of beauty and retreat.
A Place Between the Rocks, June 2024
A Place Between The Rocks is a part of Bella’s default group, Bella’s Lullaby, so members of that group will have rezzing rights on the land for photography, while those requiring such rights can obtain them for L$40 – just please pick up your bits after you. Caught under a very suitable EEP setting, and rich in the sounds of cats (they’re all around, keeping an eye on things!), bird and chickens and with places to sit scattered around awaiting discovery, this is another excellent region design by Bella.
Nong Han Kumphawapi, June 2024 – click any image for full size
Far to the north of Thailand and located within the Udon Thani province lies the lake of Nong Han Kumphawapi. According to the folklore of the region (lore which encompasses both northern Thailand and neighbouring Laos), the lake plays a pivotal role in the tragic love tale of Phadaeng and Nang Ai, as do the flows which bloom within it (in their memory) and the wetlands within which it sits – wetlands that were designated as being of international importance in 2001, due to their biodiversity.
Nong Han Kumphawapi, June 2024
The lake is also, as of June 2024, the latest setting Jade Koltai has used as inspiration for an in-world region design. In doing so, Nong Han Kumphawapi joins Jade’s Painjin (2023) in depicting another of the physical world’s wetland areas within Second Life (see: A Red Beach in Second Life).
Covering an area of just under two square kilometres, with the surrounding wetlands covering a total of just over 4 square kilometres, the lake is also known as Talay Bua Daeng – Red Lotus Sea or Red Lotus Lake – due to the fact that while the water is more open that the surrounding wetlands, it is home a huge array of flowers which, which in bloom, turn the lake into a carpet of pink and red.
That the plants are tropical water lilies rather than lotus plants makes no difference – the sight of the flowers blooming across the water from around late November through until around late February give it both a mystical air and mark it as a tourist attraction. The lilies serve to hide a secret of the lake: whilst it may well cover an area of almost two square kilometres, it is for the most part little more than a metre in depth.
Nong Han Kumphawapi, June 2024
As noted, both the lake and the wetland are noted for their biodiversity, sustaining as it does a variety of fish, birds and plants. Water from the area also serves part of the Udon region to the south, providing them with water for agriculture, etc. However, it is within the tale (or rather, tales, as the story takes multiple forms) of Nang Ai and Phadaeng that the lake is best known to the peoples of northern Thailand and neighbouring Laos.
In essence the story goes that Nang Ai (and also known as Aikham), daughter of King Ek-Thita, became famed for her beauty, bringing forth suitors from far and wide; one of whom was Prince Phadaeng. Another was Prince Pangkhee (or Pangkhii to some), the son of the Grand Nâga, ruler of the deep. He was said to have been married to Nang Ai in at least one past incarnation and was determined to be so again. As neither Despite Nang Ai clearly being in love with Phadaeng, her father insists a contest is held for her hand – and neither Phadaeng nor Pangkhee succeed in winning it. Nang Ai’s uncle does, but he’s disbarred from wedding her, leaving everyone a tad miffed. However, both Pangkhee and Phadaeng determine they will each see the princess again.
Nong Han Kumphawapi, June 2024
Being the son of a shape-shifting deity, Pangkhee turns himself into an albino squirrel for his visit. In doing so, he successfully finds himself on the menu when Nang Ai sees him and decides stewed squirrel would go down rather well for lunch. Killed by Nang Ai’s hunter, with his dying breath, Pangkhee requests that his father avenge him and kill all who eat squirrel – and just to help sort out who this should be, turns himself into 8000 cart loads of ready-to-cook squirrel meat. This goes down very well (literally) for the townsfolk – and Nang Ai even serves the visiting Phadaeng squirrel soup.Enter the Grand Nâga and his angry horde to carry out the requested vengeance. As the killing rages, Phadaeng and Nang Ai attempt to flee on horseback, but the Grand Nâga floods the land, creating the lake and Nang Ai carelessly falls into it and drowns. Stricken with grief Phadaeng dies as well – only to bounce back as a ghost leading an army of ghosts, no also out for vengeance, this time on the Nâga’s horde, who are indeed defeated, but not before the land around the lake is flooded, forming the wetlands.
Nong Han Kumphawapi, June 2024
With her design, Jade particularly captures the flowering nature of the lake, although the setting perhaps suggesting it has been transposed to a more coastal location. The waters are shallow, the lilies in bloom, and here and there the land rises above the water. On one sits the remnants of an ancient temple, while more ruins and the remains of wood houses rise from the waters like romantic apparitions, watched over by cranes. A modern raised deck sits out over part of the water, clearly awaiting the arrival of tourists, whilst sampan-like boats float out among the lilies, just like the ones used to carry visitors over the shallow waters of the real Nong Han Kumphawapi.
Rich in bird song and setting under s sky in which a westering Sun is slowly setting, the region includes multiple places to sit and be serenaded by bird song and the gentle sounds of lapping water. Recommended.
Infinite Darkness, June 2024 – click any image for full size
I recently received an invitation from Gian (GiaArt Clip) – together with some very gracious words, thank you, Gian! – to visit Infinite Darkness, their latest region design. Having previously visited and written about Gian’s Buddha Garden (see here and here) and Monkey Island (see here), I hopped over at the earliest opportunity to explore.
Anyone who visited either of these two past designs is going to find Infinite Darkness very different – and yet, equally rich in the kind of detail that made both Buddha Garden and Monkey Island so notable as places to visit – and places with a story to tell. A clue to that story lies within the About Land description for the setting:
Good and evil, water and fire, light and dark, are the essence of Infinite Darkness. The majesty of the gothic style, the occult symbolism and the dark powers of the vampires will immerse you on a hellish journey.
– Infinite Darkness About Land description
Infinite Darkness, June 2024
So it is that visitors find themselves arriving within the ruins of a chapel on the proverbial Dark and Stormy Night – and if not already set, it is at this point for the viewer to be checked to Use Shared Environment. These ruins (the marvellous Chapel Ruins by Marcus Inkpen, whose structures Gian has used throughout the region, giving them all a subtle connection of style and look, thus allowing them to become a natural part of the whole) sit upon an island, and give the first hints of the Light and Dark theme. To one side of the the chapel is a tombstone draped with a weeping angel. Facing it across the chapel’s worn floor is a stone plinth topped by an empty-eyed skull staring at the angel, as if mocking it and the idea of life after death.
A long and narrow bridge crosses the water to link the landing point. It is lined with further motifs conveying the ideas of light and dark, good and evil. These start on the left with a reproduction of Le génie du mal just outside the chapel, with its depiction of Lucifer becoming Satan, his crown held limply in one hand as his other feels the horns growing from his head even as his angelic wings have become demonic, bat-like membranes. Meanwhile, at the far end of the bridge is what might be seen as depiction of the corruption of innocence in the form of a naked woman giving herself over to the predations of a demon.
Infinite Darkness, June 2024
These motifs continue at the top of the stone stairway climbing up the steep side of the isle at the far end of the bridge, and the stone figure of an angel holding out a golden apple, a serpent wrapped around its torso. A clearer depiction of the Lucifer / Satan mythology and its link to the “fall of Man” I’ve yet to see; with the statue also underscoring the idea that both good (aka light) and evil (aka darkness) are spawned from the same roots.
It is before this figure that the adventure of discovery truly begins; one that I do not want to write above in great depth, as doing so would spoil anyone’s visit. Instead I’ll endeavour to offer some pointers for explorers.
Infinite Darkness, June 2024
The pool over which the statue of Lucifer/Satan sits is backed from a high waterfall, tumbling from beneath the shadowed for of a house occupying the island’s central peak. A stream exits the pools and curves around the north side of the peak to eventually tumble down into the cleft hewn between this island and an even taller one to the east. A path follows the course of the stream, providing access to both a tall bridge pointing north over the surrounding waters to another plateau of an island. Demons line the bridge, which is watched over by the decaying hulk of a stone gazebo, the demons giving a clue to what might be found on the far side of the bridge.
Neither bridge nor gazebo forms the path of the path however; instead, it crosses the stream as it takes the first step in its downward tumble by means of an old tree trunk, prior to continuing on by means of steps cut into the living rock that lead to the darkened maw of a tunnel as it beckons the adventurous inside.
A second path runs southwards from in front of Lucifer / Satan and around that side of the island’s peak, using a weathered board walk and mossy path to guide people to where a mix of ancient steps and wooden ladder provide access to the shadowy house above. In doing so, the path also provides access to yet another high bridge, tis one stretching its arm out to the south to touch another flat-topped island, this one home to the darkened bulk of a church, whilst the bridge and path are again watched over by a stone gazebo, thus one in far better condition than its northern cousin.
Straddling the flattened top of the rocky pinnacle, the house sits above two waterfalls to west and east, the latter also falling down into the cleft separating this island from the one rising even higher beyond it. A bridge spans this deep, narrow gap between these two isles, linking the front door of the house with a switchback path leading up to where the top of the taller island gives way to a the impressive bulk of a Gothic house built in the style of a castle. Shrouded in a veil of heavy rain as if trying to conceal itself from view and with thunder rumbling overhead, this house, with its towers and giant figure raised against its west face, appears to be a foreboding place.
Infinite Darkness, June 2024
Both of the houses offers a rich mix of ideas and motifs, with both leaning into the ideas of the occult and vampirism mentioned in the About Land description. With interiors by ViolaBlackwood, both should be explored fully, offering as they do their own details and sense of narrative for the imagination to explore – and I’ll say no more about them here so as not to spoil things, as noted above. However, they are not all that awaits; there are the aforementioned islands to the north and south to witness as well; and all I will say about these is that they are both very individual whilst together then further the theme of light/dark / good/evil.
Meanwhile, for others who do follow the tunnel below the smaller house and mentioned above, a further motif awaits in the form of a skeletal boatman standing in his vessel like Charon waiting to ferry the dead across the Styx. fortunately, the living do not have to take his boat across the misty waters: a rickety bridge spans them to provide access to another tunnel and caverns awaiting exploration.
Infinite Darkness, June 2024
Whether or not you are – like me – fascinated by the visual motifs and prompts neatly woven into the setting or simply love places that stir the imagination and represent time well-spent in exploration – or have a love of things occult / vampire -, Infinite Darkness offers a lot to see and appreciate, all of which is beautifully executed. For those who do share my fascination for symbols and motifs, I will in closing suggest you cam overhead and look down on the setting from above using your camera.
If you do, you might sport the region design, with it’s west-to-east orientation looks remarkably like the layout of a cathedral. To the west lay the entrance (the landing point), with its long bridge forming the nave, whilst the tall island with its Gothic house/castle sit as the chancel with its quire (or choir, if you prefer), ambulatory and apse. Meanwhile, the island to the north and south form the two transepts, their aisles and that of the nave coming together at the island with the smaller house to form the crossing.
Thus within its form, the region offers a further juxtaposition of “light” and “dark”: in form it resembles the “light” of Christian mythology, whilst the further into it one progresses, the more one is surrounded by the the “dark” of the occult and ideas of vampire and demons, with the latter form what might be seen as the most holy elements of a Christian cathedral, sitting as they do over the what might be seen as the location of a cathedral’s chancel, again giving focus to the idea that what we regard as “good” and “evil” are born of the same roots (our own imaginations).
Infinite Darkness, June 2024
All told, a superb setting and one deserving of time and thought when visiting.
Addendum
As pointed out to me by Gian, I did actually miss a detail within the build that is worth pointing out. Those who do delve into the tunnels and caverns should mouse-over the items they find within them carefully, as one has a hidden teleport. Those who find it will be transported to what I’ll call the layer of the vampire; a place which contains a sense of the ruins of Whitby and Bram Stoker (without actually being so), and carries with it a further element of the occult. With a vortex-like opening at one end, it also suggests it might be a further entrance to hell. I’ll say no more here, and leave it to visitors to discover.
Nathhimmel: Lavender Fields of Madame Loutre, June 2024 – click any image for full size
From the east and south the land rises in a gentle slope, climbing gently to the west and north to meet with the upward sweep of land for the north side of the region so that all three slopes slopes form the low hump of a hill before falling back towards the western edge of the region. Across this landscape and broken by precious few trees, is spread a blanket of lavender, running from the water’s edge on all sides and drawn into regimented lines and blocks by avenues of grass in places topped by short lines of paving stones.
This is a tranquil place, the eastern shoreline interrupted by two bays pushing into it, the smaller of which looks like a giant thumb has been pressed into the ground to leave an indentation for the surrounding waters to claim as theirs. Such is the lie of the setting, were the wind to come from the east and passing over these bays, it is not hard to imagine it driving waves to where the shore breaks their progress so they transfer their momentum to the lavender, causing it to ripple inland and up the slope to wash around the house atop that single low hill.
Nathhimmel: Lavender Fields of Madame Loutre, June 2024
Boxy and long, the house presents a tiled roof to the sky which extends out over a north-facing veranda, affording it some protection against the likes of sunshine and rain. It is counterbalanced by the rising second floor of the house rising from the southern end of the house to provide sufficient space for a cosy bedroom. Aside from broken ruins a short walk down slope, the house is the only human-made structure on the island – and the only place still occupied.
With its low-walled garden lushly overgrown with flowers allowed to grow wild on one side and the other planted with cobbles, the house exudes the tranquillity that seems to flow outwards over the surrounding lavender and to the very edges of the region. Alone and at peace, this is the home of Madame Loutre, the last inhabitant of this restful setting, and the spread of aromatic plants growing around it are known as the Lavender Fields of Madame Loutre.
Nathhimmel: Lavender Fields of Madame Loutre, June 2024
But who is she? I hear you ask, and where might this place be found? Well (and to ignore the surrounding waters, I’ll let Konrad (Kaiju Kohime) and Saskia Rieko explain, for they are the people who have made our journeys to this place possible:
In the secluded one-house village, nestled deep within the enchanting region of Provence, resides the mysterious Madame Loutre, an ethereal otter spirit … Madame Loutre is both a guardian and a secret keeper of the village, known for her wisdom and the enchanting, calming presence she bestows upon visitors. The villagers from nearby towns speak in hushed tones about her magical abilities and the tranquillity her lavender brings. This idyllic haven remains untouched by time, a place of quiet wonder and mystical charm.
– From the Nathhimmel website
Nathhimmel: Lavender Fields of Madame Loutre, June 2024
Saskia and Konrad are, of course, the designers of Nathhimmel region settings in Second Life and which have appeared in these pages several times since the couple started offering their work as places for Second Life users to visit and photograph; and the Lavender Fields of Madame Loutre is the latest iteration of their work, having opened at the start of June 2024.
This is a design which – quite genuinely – does not require description or explanation; it speaks beautifully and clearly for itself. The house offers a focal point around which endless stories might be woven about the mysterious MMe. Loutre – who she might by, why the locals think she has magical powers, what has given her a love of lavender – and more. The landscape offers subtle opportunities for photography, whilst dotted around three sides of the region places to sit / rest are awaiting those who seek them. Should props be required for photography, then joining the local group (no charge) will provide rezzing rights – but do please remember to pick your thing up afterwards!
Nathhimmel: Lavender Fields of Madame Loutre, June 2024
The landing point, located in the south-east corner of the region includes a link for obtaining additional information on the region (although the supplied notecard does give details on a previous Natthimmel design), and a teleport link to the region’s gallery – although this was without art at the time of my visit, so possibly awaiting a new exhibition. Neither of these latter points detract from the setting, which offers a relaxing and gentle visit for all who choose to drop in.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 