Every Relay season always arrives with its own particular brand of chaos, heartbreak, and moments that have you crying into your keyboard at 3am. This one was no different. 1,200 words. That puts you at about 5 minutes of reading time, give or take a minute depending on how often you stop to laugh, cry, or google “Second Life rubber duck.”
2026 came in swinging. Relay Stock? Gone.
Relay Rockers? They put down the guitars, hung up the hats, and presumably retired somewhere comfortable, possibly still wearing sequins (we hope they are).
The Sugar Skols walked their last Relay as the Sugar Skols, because they are off on a whole new adventure as RagnaRock, which sounds less like a Relay team and more like what happens when a Viking discovers an energy drink.
We lost Ren. We lost others. The kind of losses you do not set down. You just carry them forward, because there is no other option, and because the Relay Family does not know how to stop moving.
And yet.
62 new teams. 64? Somewhere in that neighborhood, and if I am off by two please correct me and I will nod slowly as though I knew. Teams forming out of nothing but stubbornness and solidarity, deciding that yes, this was worth their time, their Lindens, and apparently their entire social calendars from January through June. You want to talk about beginnings? Start there. Start exactly there.
Relay Weekend 2026 ran June 13 and 14 across what I believe was 30 sims, because we are not a small feelings kind of organization. 202 teams total. Potentially the most dramatic 24 hours in virtual reality since someone, somewhere, decided that a T. Rex carrying a man in a cage was appropriate track attire (see photo, which is precisely what you think it is, and no, no one has adequately explained it).
The weekend had stories stacked inside stories, like nesting dolls, except purple.
There was a Relay season wedding. LuCat and JoCat, because if you are going to pick a season to get married, you might as well pick the one where 202 teams are already emotionally compromised and crying anyway. There was a mysterious cardboard cutout man who kept appearing in places no one invited him, the Second Life equivalent of Where Is Waldo except somehow more unsettling.
There was a Rainbow Track Lap organized for the LGBTQ+ community, because the track belongs to everyone, full stop, no asterisk, end of sentence.
The Luminary Ceremony happened. We sat together silently. Names were spoken out loud over the stream. We sat or held each other in the way you can do across a screen and somehow mean it completely.
Then the “Sink the Sims” party happened on Wednesday, because grief and joy in this community do not wait politely in separate rooms. They share a couch. Mayhem ensued, thanks to Stingray and access to Hot Buttons to make the water level rise.
There was a giant rubber duck presiding over the festivities from above (Nuggets crew, almost certainly), a pony waiting to gallop on the track for reasons that felt profound in the moment, with someone in full equestrian gear atop what can only be described as a very grumpy MELD cartoon horsy, because in Second Life the dress code is “creative or nothing” and people take that seriously.
Every Relay season holds a thousand stories. Let me tell you about two.
Sandy Hauster
Sandy is part of the stage crew family of Austin Moores. She is a survivor. She wanted to walk the Relay track. That sentence should be simple. For Sandy, it is not.
Numerous obstacles kept her from completing a Relay Lap in first life. And then, because the universe apparently felt it had not made its point firmly enough, she was recently diagnosed as legally blind. She cannot use Second Life the way she once did. She relies on viewers built for people with disabilities, use voice (a gift, by the way, one that many of us did not fully appreciate until someone genuinely needed it), with adjustments and workarounds and the patient ingenuity of the people around her.
So. How do you walk a virtual track when you cannot see the virtual track?
Follow HUDs. Shoulder rides. Many options exist, as it turns out, because the Second Life community is relentlessly creative when it comes to solving problems nobody expected to have.
A leash. Not the kinky kind.
Stay with me.
We can gift a collar. Sandy attached it somewhere on her body, attachement point not critical, being on her avatar was the whole point. The unpacking text instructions are read aloud by machine translation. AI shows up here, in this moment, doing something truly amazing, and we are filing that under “appreciated.” Her friend clicked the collar. The leash was shortened so Sandy would not drift into the trees while they would be walking, a sentence I suspect has never been typed before in human history. BOM clothing is applied to reduce lag (this is real advice, we are multitasking here). They both teleport to ACS Island.
Austin, her walking-lead, looked down at the white arrows on the ground.
Took a step.
Sandy took hers.
All the way around the track. One lap. 9,728 (m). Number 601 on the list. Turtle power. I am one too. We are proud to be Turtles.
The Relay stream played the whole time. She could hear it. She was in the crowd, on the track, part of the whole ridiculous wonderful noise of the Relay Family doing what it does. She could not see the campsites or the signage or whatever walked the track, but she could hear the music walking right alongside her. She could hear the voices. She finished her lap.
Austin, the one holding the leash, cried with her. What Sandy was unable to complete in First Life, she did in Second Life.
The “thank yous” pile up fast here. To the creators who built collars and follow HUDs for entirely different purposes and accidentally made this moment possible. To Austin, for the specific and unglamorous work of friendship, which sometimes means looking at arrows on a virtual floor for an hour so your person does not end up in a bush. To the Entertainment Crew for the music and talking over the stream. To the people on voice and stream, who became the scenery when the scenery was not visible. To ACS for building a track worth walking. To every person along the route who cheered without once stopping to wonder whether she could see them back. To Linden Lab, who built all of this 23 years ago without knowing it would someday matter in this exact and specific way.
Sandy and I have a walking date next year. I suspect I am one of many who have made this standing offer, and her choices are limited only by lag. Maybe she walks with all of us as a group. Maybe she does more than one lap.
Ashe Mountaingale
Ashe is part of the MELD Campus. She is called “the General,” with deep affection and what I assume is a healthy understanding that you do not argue with the General. She is a breast cancer survivor. She was a first time Relayer this year. She brought Rex, her pup, along for the ride, human adjacent at times, and tail wagging at maximum enthusiasm throughout.
They were not exactly walking. Ashe was using whatever attachment moved her forward, which is the correct philosophy both for Relay and for life in general. I had the privilege of joining them for a few laps. I felt honored, genuinely, and only slightly showed off about it afterward (here – HA!).
Cancer, as Ashe would be the first to tell you, does not check credentials before it arrives. It does not sort by community or identity or what corner of Second Life you call home. It shows up at every prim. And so the Relay Family shows up everywhere too, in every community, walking the track, wearing every possible outfit, including (especially) what makes you feel good.
There are endings. There are beginnings. We carry what we have lost and we walk toward what we are still fighting for. One step at a time. One lap at a time. In sequins, in equestrian gear, on the back of a rubber duck if necessary.
When you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel, I promise you it is there. The Relay Family is walking right beside you. Even when you cannot see them. Especially then.
Sandy Hauster
https://my.secondlife.com/sandy.hauster
Austin Moores
https://www.austinmooreslive.com/
https://my.secondlife.com/austinmoores
https://www.facebook.com/austin.moores.9619
Ashe Mountaingale:
https://my.secondlife.com/astarteh.mysterious
MELD Campus
https://www.primfeed.com/meldservices.resident
https://fccinsl.wixsite.com/meld2026
https://my.secondlife.com/groups/0b975211-b3e6-2a5a-6a6e-8196979b72e7
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