Arising from discusions I've had with several of my fellow Firefly fans and roleplayers in Second Life, as well as a lot of thinking I've done on the nature of RP in SL, a new project has been started by myself and Imrhien Fargis.
There are several different types of players and participants in the RP scene on SL, none are superior or inferior to the others. Each has its adherents, and one assumes that the members of each 'faction' of players enjoys what they do (otherwise they wouldn't do it, eh?). Of late there have been quite a few discussions among the members of one of those factions about where to play, where to "be" their character.
With the closing of sims such as Eavesdown Docks and Beaumonde there are no obvious gathering places for this faction of players, which is the primary reason these discussions have taken place, but there are more factors at play than just not having a place to RP in their chosen style. There's the fact that they play in a somewhat different style than the RP communities established around specific sims currently operating.
Somewhat in jest I came up with the labels "Naked" and "Not Naked" for the two primary divisions in the Firefly Roleplay community in SL.
What I mean by these labels is a bit tongue in cheek but simply put, if you own 5 or more sex beds you may be a Naked faction member. If you have spent as much money as the Gross National Product of South Africa on skins, clothes, hair, shoes, you may be a Naked faction member.
If you spend fortunes on top quality buildings, spend hundreds of hours in photoshop making custom textures for the hull of your custom Firefly spacecraft, if you haven't owned a freebie item since your first week in SL... you may be a Naked faction member.
Talking to other players who felt like I do that we didn't really have a place, certain characteristics came out that we have in common. A deeply held appreciation of aesthetics, an attention to detail, a willingness to spend either money or time (or both) to make our avatars our expressions of art. Personal flickr pages to showcase our photography in SL, character blogs featuring stories not only about conflicts our characters may be involved in, but also the small, mundane, yet beautiful aspects of our fictional lives.
We may appreciate a good shoot 'em up fight, or not. We may engage in promiscuous and lascivous personal behavior, or may refer to such "off screen". But we all portray our characters as healthy, adult, members of a world based at least loosely on the Firefly tv show.
Do you get naked in SL?
Do you not get naked in SL?
It's an admittedly juvenile designation and way of thinking of the different players and groups of players in SL, but... it works.
And the Naked Firefly Roleplayers of Second Life don't really have a place to BE right now.
So, lacking a specific sim or location in SL to point at and say "That is ours" we are trying a bit of an experiment.
A central location on the web for members of our faction to "be", which will collect blog posts, stories, and other communications and expressions of creativity from our members, to start with. http://grou.ps/nakedfirefly
A Second Life Group to facilitate in-game communication. Naked Firefly RP In Second Life.
A Flickr Group for sharing our visual creations effectively with each other.
The hub of this community will be the grou.ps site. More about this project will be posted there as time goes on, with Nack's blog being his generally In Character stories and such.
Let me know if you think you are a Naked Firefly RPer. I'd be glad to invite you to join us.
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