Butterflies have long held significance for me both in RL and SL. Here's another one of my sweet and sappy stories about butterflies in SL...
A loooong time ago, I rented a cool little beach parcel in a multi-sim surfing community - the original Monkey Cove. If you've been around SL and the surfing community, you might recognize the name. At that time, I'd only been in SL a short while and I didn't understand the concept of prims and prim allotment and limits and all that good stuff. All I knew was that I LOVED my new little beach house and I filled it with furniture and décor until it was bulging at the seams. I built myself a cute little detached art studio and filled that, too. I collected surfboards like some people do baseball cards and lined them up along the outside walls of my studio. Now, back before mesh came along (showing my SL age here), objects were a WHOLE LOT more "primmy". A sofa that might be 7 Li now was like 27 or more prims then. And I didn't realize it at the time, but the prim allotments on privately owned homesteads was a lot less... like 3500 prims instead of 5,000 like it is now.
Anyhoo... I was constantly running out of prims and CONSTANTLY bothering my landlord asking for more prims. He quietly and patiently tried to meet my demands. It wasn't until months later I learned that you're supposed to PAY for the additional prims. I was immediately horror-stricken. My landlord (whom, by the way, was also a surfing LEGEND and fantastically good looking and very quiet and mysterious) had been robbing one parcel or another on the sim I was on and allocating me additional prims the other tenants weren't using - and NOT increasing my rent! Once I realized this, I looked for a larger parcel on one of his 12 connected sims that afforded more prims and was, of course, more expensive due to the prim count allotted. I asked him to help me move to that larger parcel, set up a new home and studio... and of course ran out of prims again. Out of desperation, I asked him once again if we could increase my prim allowance, but THIS time, I explained I understood there would be a rent increase. I worked that poor, good-looking man to death as he reallocated prims, reset my rent box... all kinds of things managers and sim owners have to do for their tenants that bubbleheads like me had no idea about.
So our relationship went on from there. It grew into more of a friendship. He would kid me about my need and greed for prims. I would tease him for being too quiet and only socializing during surf competitions, then crawling back in his shell until the next one. I felt like he liked my big personality, but I could never be sure if he was just this genuinely nice to everyone or if he actually like me and all my craziness that seemed to follow me around as I lived and played in his utopian community.
While I lived there, there was a large group of us that would gather around, sit by the fire on the beach while laughing and talking with each other for hours. I would always keep an eye out in case my "landlord" might stop by. Sometimes he did for a bit and my heart would just beat out of my chest. And if he spoke to me directly or made a funny, well-meaning joke at my expense - I would literally float on Cloud 9 for hours after. I felt like a schoolgirl around him and I probably acted like one.
My landlord was constantly building his own things that made life at Monkey Cove fun and interesting. He built this giant, epic surf shop that, to this day still, was/is an engineering MARVEL. It was spectacular in both size and detail. He held surf competitions and made the trophies himself. Just all sorts of cool things. I was in awe. He actually inspired me to learn how to build and even gave me free space to display and sell my décor and furniture. I used to make things for him and sneak in his house and leave them there for him... just trying to be cute and charming. To say I had a crush on this man is a gargantuan understatement...but it seemed he wasn't one to "do SL relationships", so I just pursued his attention relentlessly more as entertainment for him and a chance to learn more about him for myself.
Anyhoo...butterflies...
So... one day I noticed he'd made this really cool rock wall with plaques on it. Each plaque was the name of an original, first tenant or important surf team member of Monkey Cove. I was neither a first settler OR a surf team star, but I melted when I saw MY name was among the ten or so commemorated on that tribute wall! If you knew the electricity that surged through me that day as I read all the names and found MINE among them... And guess WHAT?! MINE was the ONLY ONE that had a little something special added to it. A butterfly above my name. No explanation. No obvious reason. Just a darling butterfly trailing across my special plaque among the legends named there. I never had the nerve to ask him what the butterfly meant nor did he ever offer up any sort of explanation. It was just this sweet, unspoken thing between us. Confirmation that he DID like me more than he thought I was a pain in his arse.
A lot of stuff has happened since my days renting from him at Monkey Cove, but I can happily tell you that after TEN years of relentless persuing, he finally ran out of gas and let me catch him. His name is Syx Toshi. And now mine is Bryn Toshi. :))
Credits:
::ACCESSORIES::
NaaNaa's Spring Necklace Lara [Fatpack] - Butterfly necklace can be found at the BLOOM EVENT
::BODY::
Maitreya Mesh Body - Lara V5.3
GENUS Project - Genus Head - Classic Face W001
::HAIR::
ALANTORI - Becky Hair
::CLOTHING::
Tank :: Maitreya - Mermaid :: Pink Cream Pie
