About

Howdy! I'm Eris Ravenwood. Some of you might know me from real life, but most of you from Second Life. This is my new Second Life specific blog where I'll share tutorials, fun places and events I find, and any longer-form content I feel like writing.

What got me into Second Life?

Like a lot of people, I first tried out Second Life way back in 2007. I was in high school then, and signed up for a free account on the teen grid. I stuck around for a few hours, maybe a day at most, then bailed hard. I don't really remember my experience back then, since it was almost 20 years ago, but clearly I didn't like it.

Fast-forward to 2024. I was at home, chatting on Discord. A rando in a Discord server I'm on mentioned how they'd probably use SL, but they were frustrated that it was so expensive. I responded, "what? isn't it free?" and tried out my old email to see if I already had an SL account. That's when I re-discovered the 2007 account, which I quickly discarded because nothing was on it, and created a new account.

That sent me down the rabbit hole of making an avatar (which some older Reddit posts were a huge help with), which led me to discover that I really needed to spend like $20 to get my avi into a place I was happy with. Now, new users have the Welcome Pack, which gives a buuunch of really nice starter gear, but at the time I just had Senra and random freebies which really didn't cut it.

I think what made Second Life stick for me this time around is where I was in my RL when I signed up:

• I had recently lost my job.
• Most of my RL friends didn't have as much free time to do stuff as I did between job hunting.
• As an extrovert, I seek out social experiences, but without a job, I didn't have the necessary disposable income to go to RL events by myself.
• I did, however, have enough money to make a damn decent looking avi, and find a "job" in-world to earn money and shop sales and stuff.
• As an extrovert, SL is a really great social platform to meet people and scratch that extroverted itch.

So yeah, SL stuck. And yeah, I moved across the country, found a new RL job, improved my life, and now I can do more social activities in RL, but SL is still such an important place for me to socialize and express myself. Not to mention all the amazing music and events.

What do I like to do in Second Life?

Gods, I do so much in Second Life it's hard to keep track.

I love going to music clubs to listen to good DJs while chatting in-world or doing work in real life. Meeting people is important to me, so events I go to tend to be places with more social chatter. Or, I'll IM folks with interesting avatars and profiles, to start a conversation.

Exploring, especially with friends, is a lot of fun to me. Mainland is fucking huge and constantly changing, so it's nice to just kinda drive or Stargate around and see what's new, or find cool old builds to explore.

I go to a lot of events, and even volunteer sometimes! Like, Second Life's 23rd Birthday is coming up tomorrow and I'm volunteering on the stage crew, which is going to be a great time. Fantasy Faire was a bit over a month ago, and that's always a favorite of mine to attend.

I'm an official volunteer Second Life Mentor, and when I can, I mentor new residents so they're not as lost as I was when I joined.

I try to attend official User Groups when I can, dependent on my RL workload, to keep up-to-date with SL's dev team and open source community.

I go to a ton of random smaller events, art exhibitions, and shows (music or otherwise), that just kinda pop up from time to time.

And sometimes I just goof off with friends. You know how it is.

My plan for this blog

I plan to post ~weekly, maybe twice weekly.

I plan on writing an obligatory "Getting Started" tutorial, starting a new avi from zero in 2026, with a list of useful resources. With SL23B starting tomorrow, that guide might come a bit later, but it's coming.

I'll also post regularly about random shit I find exploring, events I've been to, or that are coming up, and of course, my thoughts on current events on the grid, or friends' blog posts, or reddit posts, etc. I have a lot of thoughts.

The main place for my pics will continue to be Primfeed, but I'll post some of those here too!

This is very much a work in progress, and I appreciate your support. Thanks for reading, and I hope you like my new site! :3