Untitled Document
ARISTASIA
in ELEKTRASPACE
A Short History
Aristasia began some years before the Internet, but it came online quite early, creating its own virtual territory, known as Elektraspace. The first Aristasian presence online (unless any one knows of an earlier one) was called Femmeworld. Femmeworld was originally intended to be the Elektraspatial incarnation of Aristasia. It was pretty, pink and fluffy and carried a warning before entry that one was leaving cyberspace and entering Feminine Elektraspace
Though frozen in time for some years now, Femmeworld contains some useful Aristasian material including the Travellers' Guide to Aristasia and some chapters from the yet unpublished Aristasian novel Strangers in Paradise. It is also home to some delightful pieces of feminine whimsy such as the Magic Invisible Dollies. The site is now preserved as part of the Official Aristasia Site and certainly repays a visit.
Shortly after Femmeworld came the Aphrodite site. This was not originally an Aristasian site but dealt with subtle eroticism. Some letters and essays on the subject by Miss Regina Snow (authoress of various published Aristasian works of fiction) first appeared here together with some delightful illustrations. The part of the site that really blossomed, however was the Aphrodite Cocktail Bar. This began life as a discussion forum on subtle feminine eroticism, even including contributions from men. In a short time, however it became a full-blown Aristasian forum discussing everything Aristasian. This was easily the largest Aristasian venture in Elektraspace to the present date. There were letters stories pictures and discussions from all over the world and the Cocktail Bar created a location for the life of Aristasia as "one long conversation".
Contributors talked in the personae of visitors from all over Aristasia to the sophisticated Cocktail Bar. Each time the bar was filled with contributions, it was archived. When one Christmas the number of archives reached 50, the Editress estimated that the amount of text contained in the archives was equal to more than two large novels - that was without the many pictures contributed. Eventually there were 79 archives.
Another Aristasian site was Elektrapette. This was originally an online Aristasian magazine produced by the same girls who made the short-lived paper magazine The Aristasian. When the Aphrodite site finally gave up the administration of the Cocktail Bar, the job was undertaken by Elektrapette, allowing the Bar to continue some time longer.
The Official Aristasian Site (aristasia.com) attempted to create a full introduction to Aristasia. However, like Femmeworld, this site seemed to freeze in time, the Interactive Map of Aristasia is both attractive and informative, but was never completed. The Blue Camellia Club was an attempt to revive something akin to the Cocktail Bar which never quite got off the ground, though in its very brief life it managed to introduce the themes of anime and Novarian Games into Aristasian Elektraspace. Also hostessed at the Official Site was a two-page mini-site on Sweethearts, the wonderful London girls' club, sadly no longer with us. You can see some pictures of real-life Aristasians there. Some day, children, some day...
Meanwhile an American-based
site, Belladonna, contains a large Aristasian section including some
delightful, Aphroditic gently erotic material, a schoolgirl section and - after
the cessation of the Elektrapette site - plays host to all 79 Aphrodite Cocktail
Bar archives, and we are happy to report that the vast number of charming pictures
have now been made available once again. This site is now accessible again (see
links below). We recommend starting somewhere in the middle (perhaps in the
50s) when the Cocktail Bar was in its heyday.
Two online schoolgirl role-play games were set wholly in Aristasia. The first, Avendale, while it lasted only two months received over 1,000 messages from players; the second, Kissingbrook, lasted rather longer. Possibly one drawback was that these games required a very high level of commitment and participation from players all the time. After all, Life Theatre in Elektraspace is for the real Aristasian rather second-best to real-life Life Theatre. We have been wondering if a slightly less demanding version might be incorporated as one part of our Girls' Town project.
