Yeah yeah, I know it's been awhile since my last post, but it's not often that I experience something
moving or
disturbing enough that I need to tell the world.
What is it about me that attracts psychopaths? I'll limit this rant to Second Life, so the relationships I'm talking about here are all business; unfortunately that doesn't make them any less emotionally charged. For some reason (I suspect my generally tolerant and patient demeanor) I can never find the "eject" button before it's too late and I've got something invested. Sometimes it's my fault for not seeing the signs, other times it just falls into my lap. I shall present here two case studies, as much for your analysis as for posterity and a hard reminder for myself. These two cases are marginally related, and both pertain to a proprietary combat system I designed for use in wild west settings. I'll only be using surnames, but if you know me or the places I'm describing, you'll be able to fill in the blanks:
Background) In early November, I was contacted by a certain Ms. Akula, who was so impressed with my wild west paraphernalia that she wanted to commission me to create a proprietary combat system for her upcoming wild west sim. I'm always reluctant to do custom work, but since this was right up my alley I decided to take the job. My conditions? I took an insanely low commission on the condition that I retained full rights to the system. As an added bonus, Ms. Akula offered me free rent and a shop in the new sim. I was not disappointed; the sim was top-notch, the people were friendly, and I had a good landlord...
1) Eventually, Ms. Akula grew weary of the sim-owner's life, and decided to move on. At this time, control of the sim was passed to a Ms. Darrow, who had been slowly advancing from "psychotic but enthusiastic" to "power-abusing sim admin", and now to "sim owner". I'd had dealings with Ms. Darrow during her previous two phases, and I wasn't too happy about this turn of events; I kept my polite face on as long as possible.
After some noncommital discussion about "optional donations", I logged in one day to an IM demanding 15% of my sales per month (over L$10,000 in rent per month for 16 prims!) and threatening real-life legal action for services paid for but not rendered to the entity of the sim in question. Not having done any research, Ms. Darrow had imagined that I'd signed some kind of contract with Ms. Akula
in which my combat system became the property of the entity of the sim (and by association, whoever the current owner may be). Naturally, this came as a bit of a shock to me; I'd been promised a free ride by the original owner, and I had retained full rights to my creations. After a few hours of being insulted, I was able to secure an uneasy truce and kept my intellectual property rights.
Why not just pull out? I still love the sim itself, and I don't want to abandon the good people who roleplay there. There also aren't any other prominent wild west sims in SL... Whether I like it or not, pulling out would also cut a major stream of income.
2) Some time later, I was invited by an ironically named Ms. Dejavu to set up shop in a newly-created wild west town. It wasn't as visually stunning as Ms. Akula's operation, but it was a welcome respite from Ms. Darrow, and a place to fall back on if I fell any further from grace. Ms. Dejavu was viciously defensive about where her supposed "population of 175" had come from, but I ignored this warning sign. After all, she was being reasonable so far: L$300 per week rent for a large shop, and enforced use of my system, much like in Ms. Akula's town. I was delighted to see many refugees here who had similarly had enough of Ms. Darrow's browbeating. As a token of gratitude, I custom-textured one of my most expensive pistols for my generous new landlord...
The next day I logged in to find a group message saying that a Mr. Buckenberger had been ejected from the group "because his friend had said some unkind things". Simultaneously, the ejected individual had contacted me to warn me that Ms. Dejavu had been asking people for the means to unlink my no-mod weapon models so she could copy them and sell them as her own.
What? I had dealings with Mr. Buckenberger in the past, and he had seemed perfectly rational and trustworthy... but what of Ms. Dejavu? I had nothing against her either, until she flew into a rage when I politely asked about the circumstances of Mr. Buckenberger's ejection. Mr. Buckenberger, on the other hand, was able to produce a substantial chat log detailing the exchange in question, and Ms. Dejavu's ability to viciously fly off the handle at something as innocent as asking why she'd given someone some hair.
Great, I've paid 12 weeks' rent to someone who's trying to rip off my new 100 prim revolvers. It isn't logical to pull my merchandise, except to spite her; these things are for sale elsewhere if she really wanted to get her hands on a copy to rip, and I'll probably pick up a few good sales during the next 12 weeks.
It gives me a good laugh to hear that Ms. Darrow and Ms. Dejavu are acquainted, and that they cannot
stand each other. Until I heard that, I'd been beginning to suspect them of being the same person... after all, how could there be two such similarly ill-adjusted, similarly-aged, similar-looking individuals both so enthusiastic about the wild west? Very sadly, I guess I should start avoiding 22 year old blondes who can't type. :-(
Alright, enough ranting from me. Who's got some similar stories? Let the bitterness flow! Just keep the names ambiguous ;-)
