So there I was just a few days ago, minding my own business and reading what the plurkers were up to on my timeline. When I noticed the biggest bratty troll on plurk, Mr. Ewan Mureaux (whom you can never really take seriously) had put up an application because he was looking for slove. Of course, I laughed, shook my head and kept scrolling because it was just another day and another bratty thing he was up to.

You see, I don’t really know Mr. Mureaux that well, aside from the funny IMs he sends me once in a while declaring his love for me and then quickly declaring how some other blogger is a much better catch once I turn him down, yeah, DON’T THINK I FORGOT ABOUT THAT!

Anyhow, so I noticed three hours later that he didn’t get much of a response to his application (shocking, right?) and he was a bit fake upset about it so I left a few words of encouragement in his plurk which made him decide to send me a partner request. Not sure how he connected those dots together but once I woke up in the morning, looked at the request, thought about it some more, I decided…why the hell not? So now we’re partnered and he seemed happy about that, I guess? You can’t really tell with him or ever take him seriously though.

So then it started, our fake love started spreading from plurk to my.secondlife and now it has ended up on my blog. He suggested we take some fake wedding pictures to commemorate this auspicious event and of course I’m always up for a good laugh. I figured since I was going to have the troll of the century behind my camera lens, I might as well interrogate him and have him on for my men on the grid series.

He cleans up pretty well though, don’t you think? So here’s what I asked him…

Strawberry Singh: What got you interested in Second Life?

Ewan Mureaux: I was bored one christmas in 2006, I read an article on the BBC about second life and joined on my crappy laptop. I wanted pure escapism and started on a female avatar, I found myself in noob places and as quickly approached by a “pimp” who gave me like 300L and took me to a massive huge box store to get pretty and I had to give him 50% or something then he im’s later and said it was 70% now and I didn’t reply.

Strawberry Singh: LOL why am I NOT surprised! So when did your avatar become male?

Ewan Mureaux: In 2008 I had had enough of not being me and wanted to do that, I still haven’t quite achieved it. It was like I wanted to get a bit more serious after living daily, for most of the day in SL. I was learning to script and did mainland trading when that was still possible. It was a combination of being more comfortable with myself, not really wanting to live a lie as I saw it although I didn’t get full on into being a girl and messing with peoples heads like the horror stories you read but I did used to DJ and it was obviously a bit weird not using voice.

Strawberry Singh: So that’s when you created Ewan?

Ewan Mureaux: Yep I decided ok time to be me a bit and do things that interest me without having to do an big explanation when I got close to people, or made good friends. I retained some good friends though through the change. I didn’t really have many and none from the social circle I have now anyway.

Strawberry Singh: Why do you feel men so often play women when joining a virtual world or other 3D game?

Ewan Mureaux: Well obviously some do it because they like dressing up, others because they have gender dysphoria , this is a safe place to explore(?) that. Other people do it because of trolling or perving, others do it just because it’s pure escapism and fantasy and something removed from real life. I suppose the number one reason though is that it’s much easier to shop for clothes and hair. I used to rock the cake hair and latex, in fact I have a funny story about clothing. I used to have this great hat that Ann O’Toole made and I didn’t know anything at all about bondage but it had like a BDSM batsign on it and someone asked if I was in “the lifestyle” I had no idea what they were talking about. The girl with him explaiined to me what it was in IM and I had to say “I just liked the hat”

Strawberry Singh: I see, so your reason for doing it was just to dress up and it’s easier to shop for girls?

Ewan Mureaux: No, as I said earlier I wanted something completely different from real me because I was unhappy then. I wanted to be someone else so I was, the shopping and playing dress up was fun though and that is why still to this day my favourite colour is “fatpack”

Strawberry Singh: Did you date people while you were a female?

Ewan Mureaux: Hahahaha I one had a lesbian relationship with another guy. Only in SL

Strawberry Singh: and he knew you were male in rl?

Ewan Mureaux: The only other one I can remember was with a girl but she knew. No when we discussed it when things got serious we made our excuses and left.

Strawberry Singh: Did you find it difficult playing a female after a while? Or was it fun til the end?

Ewan Mureaux: It was fun for a while but then when it almost got to the stage of having to play a part I wanted to ditch it. I mean even with a female avatar it was still me really, I must have been quite the tomboy anyway.

Strawberry Singh: How is it different from playing male? Do you feel that people react to you or treat you differently?

Ewan Mureaux: Not really because I’m still just me the not really a troll but might be kinda. I don’t really do anything where gender is an issue, I did land and spent time creating there’s no gender divide in either of those things in sl, no roles.

Strawberry Singh: I don’t really know you that well inworld, we never really hung out. But on plurk I’ve noticed that you’re kind of a troll 😛 And it’s hard to take anything you say or do seriously. Are you like that all the time? In the real world as well?

Ewan Mureaux: I would rather laugh than cry, I always make stupid jokes but the troll thing, there’s two different kinds, the ones who want to be lighthearted and the ones who try and be mean. I hate hurting other peoples feelings, I always feel terrible when I do it and I know sometimes I do. I think sometimes when I do it’s because I try and just be me with everyone and its sometimes a bit too familiar, then obviously some people just don’t get on their personalities don’t work. Funny though that when you actually talk to people that can change a lot, people who have had a bad first impression of me and vice versa have gone on to become really good friends

Strawberry Singh: Yeah, I’ve always kind of laughed at your antics and such, I don’t think we have spoken much before, aside from the odd IM you’d send declaring your fake love to me. But I could tell you were a good person. I never saw you being intentionally cruel to people or making fun or ridiculing people. So am I the only one you flirt with/send partner requests to? Or are there legions of other girls?

Ewan Mureaux: You get the impression sometimes that there is some sort of crazy dash to all the men by the women of sl and plurk but I don’t see it. I think hiding away scripting and generally being kind of obnoxious because of the stress of creators saying “Hi I need this scripted two days ago” can make you a little grumpy. I’m trying my best to try and stop being like that and I’ll let you know if anything changes but the only harem I have at the moment is the one in my head.

Strawberry Singh: I see you dress yourself quite well, what are some of your fav stores inworld?

Ewan Mureaux: Kauna, :Sey: Fatewear and I love this place for trainers… 2Real Footwear. Although mostly when people see me out I’ll be wearing some ridiculous outfit or avatar because that’s kind of my thing.

Strawberry Singh: So what do you do in SL, aside from buying fatpacks and trolling people?

Ewan Mureaux: For work, to pay my rent and keep me in silly costumes I script but I don’t want to be known as just a guy who does scripts and that is my new years resolution. I’m trying to recapture that initial feeling magic feeling of sl and going out and seeing places and meeting people, and yes, perhaps a little gentle trolling. The thing that fascinates me is that we get caught in these little circles and there’s still thousands of people out there. The resolution for this year is tell me who you are and not what you do, and I’m trying my best to do that too.

Strawberry Singh: That’s very courageous of you. Usually people get settled in their little comfortable lives and don’t wish to venture out and discover, especially those that have been inworld for a long time.

Ewan Mureaux: But thats what we did in the beginning we messaged everyone and anyone and said hi and then it all changed, don’t look at my profile, don’t message me, don’t inspect my clothing etc. People built a lot of barriers around themselves, well that’s my experience anyway.

Strawberry Singh: My profile sounds a bit like that as well, but I think that happens with experience and our interactions and after a while our priorities change and what we want from this world is not always the same as it was when we were first discovering it. But it’s good that you still have the desire to discover and explore.

Ewan Mureaux: I know it’s difficult for some people, especially creators who are very prominent to have any peace and that is a shame.

Strawberry Singh: So what do you do now, to accomplish your resolution? Do you go explore different places? Do you go to welcome hubs? Say hi to random people? What are you doing?

Ewan Mureaux: Each weekend for the last three weeks I have gone out with a group of friends, we pick a theme, our own theme and just dress up and turn up en masse in a club. And it’s almost like the old days, obviously we’re not interested in joining the competition like we were in our first days although that was fun too, but we’ll say dress up as the village people or super heroes and go and request songs relating to what we’re wearing and sit on a massive skype call and laugh and message people around us and have fun, make games etc.

Strawberry Singh: That sounds like a lot of fun. So what is it that you love about sl the most?

Ewan Mureaux: Again two-fold, I love using my brain to do problem solving with scripts, when someone like Froukje from Dutchie comes and says let’s break the mould here and pushed me to try and make her vision reality that is very exciting, she pushes me most and I enjoy working with her. Then of course it’s people, there’s a lot of really nice people and I enjoy interacting with them, although I haven’t been very good at that in the past but as I said I’m trying to push myself to change and come off the building platform in the sky.

Strawberry Singh: It sounds like you’ve done a lot of work for many different designers. Are you willing to share the names of some of the people you’ve worked with?

Ewan Mureaux: oh yes:

Colleen Desmoulins – The Loft

Froukje Hoorenbeek – Dutchie

Isla Gealach – Cheeky Pea

The Arcade (event)

Tegan Serin – Floorplan

Ravish Voom – Ravish Hair

Darling Monday – Fri.home

Kaz Nayar – Pilot

Sienia Trevellion – Lark

Strawberry Singh: So you script huds for them for their furniture, gacha machines, etc…?

Ewan Mureaux: I’m the guy to blame if you didn’t get that rare on the first try but I can assure you we spend for ages making that thing as fair as is humanly possible and did thousands of tests and spreadsheets of statistics. For the furniture people I tend to make AV Sitter do things it isn’t supposed to and then just anything else they want, although AVSitter has just changed so I need to look at it again. I also have done huds for shoes and things but as I’m working for something that is not yet released I had better not go into it.

Strawberry Singh: A lot of people bring up the doom and gloom story about SL every once in a while saying how it’s dying and SL will be gone in a few years. What do you think about this? Do you think LL will shut down SL soon? Do you even care about it? What are your plans for SL in a few years? Will you still be here?

Ewan Mureaux: I don’t think soon, I’m not sure if at all really, it might just downsize, the graph of technology lifespan or whatever it is called shows that you end up with your hardcore users staying and it returns almost to the state where the early adopters came in and maybe that is a good thing. Although I came in in maybe the big second wave I still think it was a bit more exciting then. The only problem is getting new people in to keep it interesting although that is in some ways made up for with existing residents trying new things as we have seen with mesh, people are willing to give it a go and this whole new wave of creativity hit us.

Strawberry Singh: Am I asking too many questions? 😛

Ewan Mureaux: ask me more please I want this to be my open letter to the world that I’m not a total jerkface

Strawberry Singh: Do you feel that’s the impression people have of you? That you are a total jerkface?

Ewan Mureaux: Only people who don’t know me, which is weird. Like when you click a plurk and you’re blocked and you think I’ve never had any interaction with that person in my life. So that’s weird. I’d just rather people actually talked than went off what other people said.

Then the conversation got a little goofy(er)…

Strawberry Singh: Is this kissing pose too close for you? 😛

Ewan Mureaux: I like this pose a lot, I wish it was a real marriage now.

Strawberry Singh: lol why?

Ewan Mureaux: because I’d get kissed by you <3 Ewan Mureaux: you can leave that out of the interview Strawberry Singh: So not leaving that out Strawberry Singh: Do you have a face emoter thingy? It would be funny if you made a scared face, like you didn't really want me to kiss you Ewan Mureaux: oh, that would be a lie Strawberry Singh: I see, lol. So where are you taking me on our honeymoon btw? Ewan Mureaux: is the honeymoon question for the blog? Strawberry Singh: yes Ewan Mureaux: in that case, bukkake bliss Strawberry Singh: LOLOL, and what if it wasn't for the blog? Ewan Mureaux: I worry that you've been everywhere pretty Strawberry Singh: awww, so you want to take me somewhere pretty? There's a romantic side to you after all 😛 Ewan Mureaux: you know what I would do, take you on a balloon ride round mainland and appreciate how beautiful and awful it is at the same time. Strawberry Singh: hahahaha, that actually sounds like a lot of fun, I might hold you to that. Ewan Mureaux: you can hold me any time Strawberry Singh: brat Strawberry Singh: So how long do you plan to stay partnered to me? 😛 Ewan Mureaux: OH, well I don't have any plans to unpartner you because someone said it's like a massive magnet to loose women Strawberry Singh: WHAT? LOL So staying partnered to me is helping you get more women? Ewan Mureaux: yep they said get that partner box filled and it will be like knee deep in tangos(?) that's a kind of boob right? Strawberry Singh: LOLOLOL! So we've been partnered for like 12 hours or so now, how's that working out for you? Ewan Mureaux: Well I wasn't sure about the hassle I got off all of your admirers and someone has tried to blame me being partnered now for not answering an im so that was fun. Strawberry Singh: First of all, I have no admirers and second of all I don't believe anyone gave you any hassles cuz of me 😛 Ewan Mureaux: you have millions!!!! Strawberry Singh: Look at you trying to blame me for things already. Typical husband. Strawberry Singh: Well I think you are quite charming and funny and amusing. So we'll see how long this lasts. I'm sure you'll dump me for the next blond that comes around the corner anyways. But I appreciate you posing for me today. I can use you again for my blog some times if I like, since you have so many fatpacks? Ewan Mureaux: yes please, I'd like that. Also, if you want to make a real go of this someday 😀 Strawberry Singh: LOL WHAT? Just what are you saying sir??? Ewan Mureaux: I'd try it. That's all. 😀 Strawberry Singh: Try what? SPELL IT OUT! Ewan Mureaux: oh you could be my tolerant lover if you liked. Strawberry Singh: Tolerant, huh? Ewan Mureaux: I'm a bit flirty Strawberry Singh: I noticed. Strawberry Singh: so am I tbh, I guess we'll see where this goes. 😛

So…that was fun. In all honesty though, talking to and hanging out with Ewan a bit for the past 24 hours, I’ve realized that you really can’t take anything he says seriously, but he is definitely a lot of fun. He’s smart, charming and quite talented as well. Thank you Ewan for humoring me, letting me kiss your cheek and gracing your partner box. Let’s see how long we can keep up our fake love and gross everyone out. <3 You can stalk Mr. Ewan Mureaux at the following links: Conspiracy Theory Blog (his store)

Conspiracy Theory Flickr

Ewan’s Flickr (mostly his RL photography)

Ewan’s Plurk

What Mr. Mureaux is wearing:

Skin: Belleza – Cooper Pale 2

Hair: Dura -Boy 43

Shirt: Kauna – 2pc Suit Shirt

Pants: Kauna – 2pc Suit Trousers /w Leather Belt

Shoes: Kauna – Brogue

Accessories: Kauna 2pc Suit – Tie

Hairbase: Lanevo – Hairbase no.02 wide

Eyes : IKON – Promise Eyes – Clarity

Slink Male Hands (Relax/ Cigarette)

What I’m wearing:

*Skin: -Glam Affair – Mokatana – Jamaica 01 E by Aida Ewing (@ Collabor88)

*Hair: TRUTH HAIR Felicity by Truth Hawks

*Gown: Maitreya Vintage Lace Gown – Bridal by Onyx LeShelle (@ Collabor88)

*Shoes: Sax Shepherd Design ~ Mata Hari Jeweled Stiletto ~ Bridal (on marketplace)

*Mesh Hands & Feet: SLink by Siddean Munro

Rings: Paper Couture by Cora Lu

*Earrings & Necklace: Zaara Nizam by Zaara Kohime

Poses: Exposeur by RubyStarlight Writer

Location: Dimrill Dale

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