________ ________ ________ 2021-11-04 / \/ \/ / \ / __/ /_ _/ I've been fooling around in VR for a / _/ / / little while, mostly decorating spaces or \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_ playing games or checking out this or that / \/ \/ / \ thrill-ride novelty. / _/ /_ _/ /- / _/ / I enjoy the experience and in a way it \________/\________/\___/____/ feels like finding a missing puzzle piece of my identity, online and offline. I've always leaned heavily into technology like a curious child, be it computers or telephones or the Internet and VR/AR feels like it's going through a very familiar evolutionary period. We had our early days of clunky trial and error, false starts and stalled engines that I'm sure we'll look back on fondly through nostalgia's rose tinted goggles but now, the technology we're playing with, the ease of use and the reduced barrier to entry glows like an exciting new horizon, an unmapped country. VR today is to VR tomorrow what the early days of the Internet were to today's ubiquitous digital communications miasma. Jerry and David's guide to the World Wide Web and 100 free hours from AOL all contained on this free floppy disk! "Have you ever got on-line?" I've been struggling to find a home for myself in that world, I've tried here and there to nest or cuddle up to a welcoming tribe but the headset gets heavy or you start to feel the tickle of a sweat drop and the spell is broken. I don't think my needs are unusual, a quiet space is not a big ask. A pretty space is not a big ask. A functioning space is not a big ask but I still have yet to find the right fit. The glass slipper for my dainty foot. Last night I had some luck. Tethered to my dear Creep, together we found OVR Toolkit[1], an application intended for streamers if I remember correctly, that lets you pluck individual windows from your Windows desktop and bring them into your VR experience as an overlay. It worked well out of the box and with some finessing it should be a real contender for a comfortable VR workflow but I needed somewhere to put it. OVR Toolkit was my notebook and pen but what could I use as a desk? I dove into VRChat[2], not really expecting it to be the resource I needed, it was more out of familiarity. I knew how to change my look and how to get around and it didn't have any action I needed to pay attention to while I fiddled with my settings. I still had my avatar with me from last time I fooled around in there and went into The Black Cat for some ambience but the people milling around, doing their thing made me anxious. I dipped out and went searching for somewhere private. I think I could have spawned my own instance of The Black Cat or whatever but that seems lonely, not comfy. Browsing around, I found an interesting space depicting the explosion and singularity at the end of AKIRA[3]. It was based on the manga and visuallly appealing but kind of ominous and, if I'm honest, the designer intended for it to be a room for a club or rave so that put me off somewhat. The manga aesthetic tumbled me down a rabbit hole of minimalist, black and white worlds and then, when I finally righted myself I stood in the tall grass of Dephy's Pale Tree[4], surrounded by black nothing, comforted by The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra[5], and in the shadow of that tree I pulled my terminals and textfiles and browsers up around me like a quilt. Practical and beautiful and comfortable. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1068820/OVR_Toolkit/ [2] https://hello.vrchat.com/ [3] https://vrchat.com/home/world/wrld_575fa058-3b28-4b99-869f-776eb67d3f38 [4] https://vrchat.com/home/world/wrld_8fb458cb-21f7-42ef-a938-a1ef3a55f1ce [5] https://theesilvermtzion.bandcamp.com/album/born-into-trouble-as-the-sparks-fly-upward EOF