Reader Submitted: The Michi Clone

 

 

Taken by Rita Mariner. When Liska da'Lantros got bid a skunk in her latest "Bid Me," she decided to make herself look like Luskwood founder Michi Lumin. On Wednesday May 10, Michi herself came to Club Cutlass, the main hangout of the Sunweaver community, saw Liska, and posed with her for a picture.
 

Luskwood Anniversary Tribute At The Happy Vixen

 

On Sunday October 25, the Happy Vixen held a special event at it's Halloween Haunt. It was the Luskwood Tribute party. For those who don't know, Luskwood is the first and longest lasting furry community in Second Life, possibly the oldest that is still going. For years, it held annual anniversary events. But the one in 2017 was the last they held. Since then, they've had to postpone then cancel the events. In 2018, the staff of the Happy Vixen offered to host a tribute to them to celebrate their turning fifteen. This year, the club decided to hold another.

Tonight we are celebrating Luskwood's 17th Anniversary! All of Luskwood's avatars and clothing from years past are in theme. Come on up to our Special Events Club and party with us for the next three hours with our wonderful DJ Snowbuns!

From 3-6PM SL time, besides people from the beach club, a number of people from Luskwood were also there. There was Ardy Lay, Saunder Hand, and others. And of course Luskwood founder Michi Lumin. There were also a couple ponies from Trotsdale, which Luskwood has a close relationship. And there was Prof. Grey (BrianL61 Landar) of Arcadia Asylum.

For three hours, DJ Snowbuns played music for the crowd. Close to thirty people showed up for the event. The normally 250L prize for the contest was boosted to 2000L by a generous donor. It was split at the end of the event by Go Fish (Swiftkill Resident) and Fortunas Sands.

Luskwood will likely have something special for Halloween. It's not a sure thing with real life butting into peoples' plans. But a way to celebrate their anniversary had been found.

Bixyl Shuftan

Luskwood Founder Michi Lumin Dealing With Impostor

Michi Lumin, one of the founders of Luskwood, Second Life's oldest active community, has a problem. Someone has been trying to fool others into thinking it's her.

Someone impersonating me on Discord and Twitch - maybe elsewhere There’s a “Michi Lumin #5428” on Discord and a twitch.tv/michi_lumin/ - out there… Neither of these people are me.

They are using my icons and images. It seems there’s nothing I can do about it but make people aware..

I have absolutely no clue whatsoever why someone would pretend to be me - complete with persona and everything, but it's happening and, I have no clue whatsoever what their intention is, but Discord and Twitch certainly won't do anything about it.

Hopefully the spoofer will soon be stopped.

The End Of The Ice Cream At Luskwood

Since late August, the "Big Tree" at Luskwood had a dark dysutopian look, with toxic-looking water, grafitti, propaganda from a "Council" with leaflets proclaiming "rebellion" occasionally plastered on them, and a suspicious-looking ice-cream factory. There would be two more bulletins from the Council, one resembling L Ron Hubbard's Sea Organization advertisements, the other looking like Soviet propaganda.

On Saturday October 26 at 8PM SL time was a "Victory Day" party. As no one from the Newser was there, and there are no known pictures of the event, all that there is to go on what happened are the scenes of wreckage at the Big Tree, with clean water flowing this time, and eyewitness reports. There are multiple reports of a giant crab having wrecked the place, although one man claiming to be with the rebellion was saying he had a hand in the ice cream factory exploding, claiming that the substance was flammable. There was no sign of the crab, other than a much smaller one skittering around.

And the "Council?" Reports on what happened to them vary, from getting killed at the event to hospitalized. but it appears their rein over the oldest active community in Second Life is now over.

Note: There was no actual griefing. This was part of a plotline by the residents of Luskwood.

Bixyl Shuftan

Luskwood Update: Ice Cream and Obedience

As Luskwood moves closer to it's sixteenth anniversary, the place still has the dystopian look that it's had since August, including proclamations from a "Council" and declarations of rebellion. Since then, this Council has continued to issue proclamations calling for it's residents to "eat the ice cream" for "a bright and happy future. One issued in mid-September looked like it was taken from L. Ron Hubbard's Sea Organization.

More recently was another one of a furry in a factory worker's outfit with a red banner in one hand and an ice cream cone in another, "Secure Our Future: Only Through Obedience Will We Prevail." It seems that the Council is taking cues from Soviet propaganda posters.

As Luskwood heads to the second half of October, there are unconfirmed reports that there will be an anniversary event of some kind. Hopefully by then, people will be talking more about cake and less about Halo Top ice cream.

Bixyl Shuftan

Luskwood Council Bulliten

Late last month, things at Luskwood were getting a little strange as the place took on a bit of a distopian look and posters proclaiming rebellion against the "Council". Michi Lumin, one of the founders of the community, recently sent the Newser a copy of a poster just released by the Council.

We all want a bright and happy future. But the threat of darkness and sadness is ever present. What if you could help? What if you could help simply by eating the ice cream? You like ice cream. Join the Council and get free ice cream for an eternity. 

If the sun does finally rise again on our noble tree, what will you say when they ask this question? "Did you help?"

One wonders, just how bad can eating the ice cream be? No word on whether or not the ice cream at Luskwood is from Halo Top. 

Bixyl Shuftan

The Luskwood Tribute Party

If another community you admire isn't able to organize a key anniversary event, what do you do? The Luskwood community, the oldest in Second Life, turned fifteen this fall, but it's founders couldn't hold a grand anniversary event. For the the Happy Vixen, the beach club of the Sunweaver/Angels community, the answer to the problem was to hold a tribute party. The party was a big success, with a number from Luskwood dropping by. To everyone's surprise, so did one of the Lindens.

Read the story in Events.

Luskwood and Trotsdale's Anniversary Celebrations

Last Saturday, October 21, two communities celebrated their anniversaries. One was Luskwood, the best known furry area, and probably the oldest community of any kind still around in Second Life. The other was Trotsdale, the most well known pony region. These two groups of people, some whom have a number of friends with the other, combined their anniversary events, their fourteenth and sixth respectively, into one single day with over eight hours of music. The Newser was there to report the happening.

Read the story in Events.

Reader Submitted: Luskwood at Second Life Birthdays Past

Recently Michi Lumin, one of the founders of the Luskwood community, sent in a few pictures she and two others, Codex Rau and Eo Fenstalker, took of their exhibits in previous Second Life Birthday celebrations. This one by Codex from SL5B in 2008 shows a sign reminding everyone that visitors to the community are very much welcome.

 Michi herself took this one of their SL6B exhibit in 2009.

Eo had a picture of the outside of Lusk's SL7B exhibit in 2010.

Luskwood hasn't had any exhibits at the Second Life Birthday celebration in the past few years. Could they be coming back this year?

Skunk Party At The Happy Vixen, with Michi Lumin

Thursday Sept. 22 was the day of the Happy Vixen's "Skunk Party." Although the theme was chosen in advance several days earlier, the news of the "Sabrina Online" comic coming to a conclusion made the part a tribute to the twenty year strip as well. In the past, there have been some impressive-sized skunk parties at Club Zero and Luskwood. The turnout for this one was somewhat light, but there were a couple notable personalities from Luskwood and Trotsdale.

Among those there was Michi Lumin, perhaps the best known of the four founders of Luskwood, one of Second Life's oldest communities, as well as the location of the oldest furry avatar maker. Begining a few years ago, she's also been involved with keeping the sims of the pony community of Trotsdale going. She had dropped by to say hello.

Also there was ScentualLust, whom in the past had been a part owner of Trotsdale. But had recently given up her share to Michi. She stuck around Skylark LeFavre, the manager of the Happy Vixen, and that night doing the DJing.

Scentual, or "Scents" as she's occasionally known, told me a little something about skunk spray animations. It used to be they could only just go straight ahead or at anyone giving permissions (unlikely). But more recent ones could target anyone nearby using "Restrained Life Viewer" features. A rather "stinky" situation indeed.

Bixyl Shuftan

Star Wars Tribute Events at Luskwood and the SLCS

Last weekend was the opening weekend for the movie science fiction fans have been giddy about for weeks: "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." And naturally people in Second Life would celebrate with tribute parties. I dropped by two of them, one at Luskwood, the other at the Second Life Cheerleading Squad's sim of Cheertopia. So how were they?

Read the story in Events.

Reader Submitted: Luskwood's Early Days

During Luskwood's anniversary celebrations on Saturday October 17, Michi Lumin shared this picture of the very earliest days of the Luskwood Community. Yes, there was a time before furred avatars in Lusk, and it was up to people like them to develop them and refine their techniques.

Little would they know of what would follow as they would essentially invent the process how furred avatars would be sold and be not only the first of many Furry communities, but the oldest active social spot in Second Life of any genre.

Image Credit: Michi Lumin

Luskwood's Twelfth Anniversary

Somewhat overshadowed by the opening of Burn2 and Making Strides' "How BraZaar," Saturday October 17 was also the official birthday celebration of the Luskwood community. It was twelve years ago that the group behind Second Life's oldest active social spot on the grid came to be, forming the first and most recognized of the many furry communities in Second Life. So they got together for a celebration, with a series of music events in three locations in their area.

Read more in Events.

Update on Michi Lumin

It was last week in which the Newser reported that Luskwood founder Michi Lumin stated that she had a chronic autoimmune illness, and that while there was a treatment available, Xolair, her insurance company was refusing to pay for it. She went ahead and arranged an appointment for a "test round" for Monday May 11 to see how she would react to the drug. There was a 1% chance her body would react badly to the medication, and a 25% it would have no real effect. She would stay overnight at the hospital in case of the former.

On Thursday evening, she finally had some news on her Facebook page about how well, or not, the drug worked.

"... status update... 3 days in, and, I was trying to be really cautious to jump to any conclusions but -- I really think the xolair is working. Amazing that one shot (well..two) can just turn complete and utter misery and constant pain into my first day of normalcy in over a month. (6 weeks, really, this is the first day I've felt normal.)" She was reducing the dosage of one other medication she was on, and "hopefully can reduce the other drugs soon, too. ... I tell you after taking too many meds, there's a point at which your body just starts to say no more. ... just the thought of medication is sickening." Although this was still the first treatment, "Now hoping that I'm part of the group that can have it knocked into remission by this thing."

"Anyways, not over yet, and there still may be rough days ahead but - I just.. want to thank everyone who's been supportive... It's hard when you've got pretty much no family left, to find the only people you have in online communities and stuff... Yeah I've heard the talks about how "online friends aren't real"... "family first, blood first" etc but... when that's what you've got, well... I'm thankful that there are still good people out there."

"... I actually feel a little guilty that I'm feeling better now, which is weird. Whereas before I was feeling bad because I couldn't be up to standards. ...| I'll keep people updated... "

Of the gofundme.com page set up by Alan Peer to help pay for Michi's medication, more money has been coming in. $1220 of the $12,000 goal has already been collected, or a little over ten percent.

So now part of the struggle is behind her, finding out for sure whether or not the drug works. Now comes convincing the insurance company to pay up for it.

Bixyl Shuftan

Michi Lumin Struggling With Autoimmune Illness, Insurance Company Refusing To Help

Several days ago, Michi Lumin, one of the four founders of Luskwood and the one whom usually handles public relations, posted on Facebook that she had a very pressing problem, one that was causing misery for her in real life, and had the potential to be fatal.

... people have been asking why I'm feeling how I am, so I need to put it in one place. I'm dealing with an autoimmune disease which has to do with inflammation being caused by what used to be thought to be "allergies" but has been recently found to be autoimmune. ...  I'm trying to get the details straight but it attacks the FceRI region of mast cells, causing granulation and histamine dumps, whereas allergies usually target immunoglobulin E (IgE). So it can't be treated with normal histamine blockers or anti-inflammatories. For the most part though doctors still don't know what causes it.

In any case, this leads to constant, constant urticaria, which is the equivalent of 1000 mosquito bites plus poison ivy all over the body 24/7. And that's the "easy" part... (it isn't easy. at all.) Additionally, my case leads to angioedema (VERY painful swelling of the hands and possibly throat) and spontaneous anaphylaxis, which is a system shutdown and adrenal problem, which if untreated, is fatal within minutes. (I have to carry an ephinephrine injector. Even that only gives me 15-20 minutes to get to a hospital where likely a tracheotomy would have to be performed, and other steps to keep blood pressure from going to zero.)

For years of having people treat it as an "allergy" with no results (since it isn't one; I'm on 21 pills a day; 8 different quadrupled-dose of sedating antihistamines, a tricyclic H1/H2 blocker, plus heavy prednisone and Montelukast) - this basically keeps me from dead, but keeps me in constant pain and unable to do much. (Though I've been powering through work and life the most I can.)

I've been very frustrated trying to explain to friends that this is not 'the itchies and the sniffles", this is life and death, ER-type stuff, that feels like being stabbed with a million tiny hot swords 24/7 ON A GOOD DAY. On a bad day, you wonder if your airway is going to close up any second now for the last time. So please understand I am not selling drama here. ... This is hell. I can't sleep, I can't do normal things. But I'm still trying.

She went on to state last year a drug was finally approved for treatment. But there was a problem.

It's called Xolair. The problem is, it's expensive. My doctor told me "Oh don't worry, NOBODY pays out of pocket for Xolair. Nobody. They even have foundations that help patients who have trouble!! I've NEVER seen anyone pay out of pocket for it!" People who are uninsured are helped with something called the GATCF -- which I'm not eligible for because I am insured, and because I'm basically not poverty level.

After getting it prescribed last week, and submitted through the wonderful group of individuals (that was sarcasm) of [insurance company], ... they came back with a "firm denial." Apparently [insurance company] was "angry" about the issue that my doctor and even the drug manufacturer were pressing them. "The patient is paying retail", they said. "... That's unbelievable. You're the first person I've ever seen who hasn't been covered." my doctor says.

The problem is - that retail price is approximately $12,000 for 6 months, or $24,000 a year. No, that is not a mistake. Apparently about 0.5% of people, usually the wealthy, pay "retail" for drugs like these. .... And then there's me. (If I had no insurance, there's something called the GATCF, or the Genentech Access to Care Foundation, which pays for the drug. But since I have insurance, even though it doesn't cover it, and since I have a job, I'm not eligible.)

I have *no other options*, by the way, as there is *no other* long term treatment for those who don't respond to elevated H1/H2 blockers. Oh, there is actually. Cyclosporine. The same drug that people are put on to keep them from rejecting heart and lung transplants. It's so strong that it lowers your life expectancy drastically ...

Michi felt that all things considered, the insurance company would be paying less than one might first imagine.

... insurance companies don't pay retail. Only "people" pay retail. Their negotiated price for Xolair is around $4000-$6000. Knowing how big [insurance company] is, that number is probably more towards $4000. My deductible is $1000. Which means I'd have to pay at least that. Plus there's a $60 additional 'specialty drug' copay per treatment. 6 treatments, so another $360 they don't have to pay.

So, even if they did decide to cover it, they would be paying $2640. They're fighting to make me pay $12,000 for a 'rest of life quality issue', and possibly life and death, so that they can make $109,360 this year from our company's premiums instead of $112,000 this year from us. My other option I suppose is to just keep grinning through the constant incessant physical pain until anaphylaxis stops it real quick forever one day.

Michi requested that her situation not be used to fuel political debates about health care. "Lawyering up" wasn't really an option, she felt, as most would cost more than going ahead and paying for the drug full retail.

The reaction was a great deal of messages from her Facebook friends, a combination of expressions of sympathy with some requests for more information. One Alan Peer started a page on gofundme.com for the purpose of raising cash her here (to view, click here).

I contacted Michi, and her feelings about making her story wider known were mixed. The idea of being an object of pity she found repulsive, "I do feel bad that I haven't been around. ... I want to keep going, even though it's very tough for me." She did say the other Luskwood founders and Luskwood Core, as well as Trotsdale's staff were stepping in to help with the duties she usually did herself, "Trotsdale is helping with Luskwood and Luskwood is helping with Trotsdale (since I oversee both)... they've all been a good help..."

Her later Facebook posts were that the first treatments were on their way. It was just a question of how it would be paid for.

Just updating people that I'm going in for the first round of this stuff on Monday at 3pm, I'm nervous about it (it can cause anaphylaxis if it causes a 'reaction before it functions', but the chance isn't high - though I still have to be under observation while it happens, so I'll be at the hospital for a bit.) - and I am nervous about the billing but I'm talking to the drug manufacturer, too, as well as the insurance company still. "appeals and avenues in process." Fingers crossed. I don't want to be a center of attention, I don't know how to handle that -- but, I really appreciate the response and help....

This one 'test round' puts me at maximum risk of $2190, which while super-ultra-suck, is at least taking a bite of the elephant before eating the whole thing... Will try to update, but again, hate feeling like an attention..getter. thing. If it works, I'll have to make the call on the next 5 treatments.

Meanwhile, been tapering off the conventional drugs, so I feel a bit more awake at this time of day than I have in a little while, so that's good.

Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.

Bixyl Shuftan

BREAKING NEWS: Michi Lumin To Be ABC News Technology Anchor

Update: April Fools!

Before Second Life, Michi Lumin worked at the TV news program "ABC World News Tonight." Her work then was mostly behind the scenes. In a surprise move that she didn't expect, she was contacted by them, asking if she wanted to work for them again. This time in front of the camera.

"They were looking for an anchor, one of the people talking to the camera behind the desk, with some experience in technology. Well, they happened to be looking over information about Second Life, and found one of their former employees was among the founders of the oldest active community here. So they gave me a call, offering me the job. Quite a bit of a change from when I used to work there."

By all means, this doesn't mean that Michi will be leaving Second Life, "There may be some days when I'm not on as much, but I'm sticking around for sure."

Michi says she should have the chance to do parts of some stories from within Second Life, presumably as her skunkgirl avatar at Luskwood, much like National Public Radio used to from the Science School sim.

For the official statement from ABC News, Click Here.

Luskwood's 11th Anniversary

Last weekend, Luskwood celebrated it's eleventh anniversary. The best known of furry locations, as well as the oldest community in Second Life, celebrated with live music and DJ tunes. Quite a few Luskwood noteables showed up for the occasion, in addition to visitors dropping by only for this one event. So what exactly went on?

Read more in Events.

Cartoon of the Day

Taken from Luskwood's 11th Anniversary party, Michi Lumin's dance AO occasionally put her in a position that for a skunk is equivalent to drawing a mace canister. No wonder the ponies seem to be backing away.

By Bixyl Shuftan

Michi's Commentary

Luskwood as an avatar maker has stated in the past they're going their own way when it comes to avatar development, doing things at their own pace rather than look at avatar trends.

That came to mind when I came across Luskwood Founder's Michi Lumin's Blog, and this post. The artist commented there seemed to be a certain trend among furry avatars, one that the artist felt would come to a certain conclusion if things kept up (Click Here).

The image originated from 04range, but I can easily see the Lusk designers thinking he nailed their jokes about some of their competition.

Trotsdale's Third Birthday Celebration With Musicians Jaycatt and Frogg

Last weekend was one of celebration in the pony community. Trotsdale was now three years old, and the locals and their friends at Luskwood threw an anniversary party. The main event (or mane event this being an equine place) was when live musicians Jaycatt and Frogg took the stage. It was a fun event for four-legged and two legged residents like.

Read more in Events.