Recollections of a +DV8+ Model
I can still clearly recall the first time I stumbled into the store, but not exactly why I had. Searching for Goth items, probably. But I do remember the building itself: cramped hallways of metal walls, pipes and fluorescent lights criss-crossing the ceiling, all brightly punctuated by the glowing neon colors I would come to know and love as Cybergoth.
They were very active in hunts in those days, I can remember three or four running that month I discovered the store, and three or four more the following month. Those little hunt prims were hidden very well in the dark nooks and crannies of the store, and that helped sharpen my hunting skills from the get-go. It also got me addicted to hunts.
+DV8+ is also where I learned about lucky chairs. They had two of them back then. I would hop back there regularly while doing hunts to see if my letter had come up. I even still have my very first prize: the Elektra Cyberfalls hair in Fallout (which I painstakingly, prim-by-prim recolored, no easy task for me the noob). Even though I have the full pack now, that one set has a permanent place in my inventory. It marked the beginning of what was to come.
There were two model stands at the time, and almost always there was at least one in use. It was only later I would find out that live models were a rarity in SL, and rarer still, they actively engaged the customers in conversation and answering questions. I knew I had to try. I confess that I didn't know much about cybergoth at the time, but I knew of several places in my huntings and mania board slappings and so threw together an outfit that expressed to me what Cybergoth was and applied. And waited.
The head model back then was the lovely Terry Tolland, a woman who makes bald sexy. S'true. But unfortunately she had fallen ill and was getting backed up on school work, so wasn't on for several months. I would come in regularly and ask after Terry, always to be told that she hadn't been around. After three months or so, I sent her a polite note card saying that I hoped she was getting better, and that I was still interested in a position if they'd have me.
The next thing I know, I'm talking to her face-to-face, got the group invite, rules and guidelines, and the starter packages. The store had just remodeled at that point, so I was given a quick tour and wrote down where everything was.
And that was it. I was a +DV8+ model. The one thing I wanted to do in SL had become a reality. It wasn't ever about the money. I can count on one hand the number of full 20-hour weeks I put in. It was enough to be there. And in those two years, I hold a perfect record for attendance. Even the weeks when I was feeling my absolute worst I was there. Not because I felt obligated to, but because I wanted to.
Two years later, this chapter of my Second Life is drawing to a close. Being a model at +DV8+ has shown me so much of what Second Life is. There was no one type of person to walk through the doorway. Everyone from the casual chic to the prim boob and double-penis latex ultradomme (no, I'm not making that up) and everyone in between. There was something for all of them. And all of them were welcomed equally.
In those two years, I've met some of the best people I could ever hope to meet, some of whom I've forged friendships with that went beyond the store walls. I've met people I normally wouldn't 'hang out' with and appreciated the person behind the avatar better than I could have any other way (there's still a cute foxboi out there somewhere, whose name I forget entirely, that I flirted with and owe some snuggle time). And I've met the absolute worst kind of people, the kind you want banned from the Internet entirely if you had your way.
It's the latter where the Deviants really showed their true colors. At the first sign of douchecanoeing or twatwaffling, these people from all walks of life would band together and smack them down. We watch out for each other, help each other out, we have each others' backs. +DV8+ is our common denominator. And from all signs, that will continue long after the store has been dismantled and the sims devoured from the Linden Lab database.
The good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. All of these things are forever part of my life as a former +DV8+ model, and my Second Life as well.
Godspeed, Vasha and Dys. You will never be forgotten.
☥Stacey
