Otherworldly

Since I spent the weekend at a couple of dog show’s in Norway I was only able to visit Enchantment yesterday to peruse what Cinderella had inspired this round’s designers to create. It turned out to be quite a nice collection, capturing different facets of the fairy tale. There were, as one would expect, quite a few stunning ballgowns, but what also caught my eye was this shorter dress by the Muses. It seemed like the sort of thing one might wear when wandering about an enchanted wood…

We Love Role-Play have opened their February round and I have to say this looks like a particularly nice one. Its always a high-quality event, but even so I came away from there with an unusually high number of demos to go through. The first item I will be showing off, however, is a set of review copies from the Muses, paired with new releases from Aisling and Wasabi Pills. And I am still in my LightStar Athena head.

I didn’t think it would happen quite so quickly, but I have found another bento mesh head that is to my tastes. This one comes from a smaller brand called LightStar, but while they may not be as well-known as Catwa or LeLutka, they already have four bento mesh heads out, two female and two male. In this video, I go over what appeals to me about the Athena head as well as some of its limitations. I also show it with three different skin appliers (the head is Omega compatible) from PXL, alaskametro and the Plastik. In addition to the mesh head, the video also showcases a line of new gowns released by the Muses.

Its time for another unboxing video, and this time around it is the Treasure Chest that I am diving into. As usual, I’ll provide a bit of extra information in this post as well as credits for what was worn during the video and for the shot included below. For the full list of designers in the chest and their items, the official website is the best resource.

It started with a fancy gown and a fancy hair, but then I slipped on a blindfold with a Cyclopean jewel and suddenly I was no longer thinking of fancy Christmas parties. A fortune teller, perhaps? No, too grand for that. And Ran had mentioned the “oracle queen” from the Artesia comic, which stuck with me even though the clothing is not at all right for it. But it still gave me the inspiration to dig out one of the thrones (I have collected a few) in my inventory.

Yesterday was one of those days where I had to indulge in some virtual retail therapy to cheer myself up, so I picked up some landscaping sets from Studio Skye that I have been eyeing for a while and did some rebuilding of the winter corner of our sim. I am rather liking the result and decided to use it as the backdrop for a new video, where I look at another animated/customisable hair from Little Bones and some new makeups from the Plastik.

The Efezah set from Aisling is one of those gorgeously elaborate gacha sets that could result in you spending a lot of time plugging away at the machine. Fortunately, you don’t really need all the pieces for the set to work, even if that is of course very nice to have! There are five common pieces—necklace, plastron, upper arm, forearm and veil—and these come in silver, gold or black. Additionally, there are two rares: the choker and earrings set and the headwrap. Each piece comes with a HUD which for common items control the gems and for rares both the metal and the gems. I love the colour options for the gems which really lets you highlight the intricate detail of the pieces. The only thing I struggled with was finding a hair that fit under the headwrap (in the end, I just used a hairbase), but that says more about my untidy inventory than anything else.

I have been engaging in a lot of rereading lately and my latest choice may be inspiring a few more or less NSFW pictures as I decided that it was finally time (well overdue, really) to revisit Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Legacy series. I had (shame on me) almost forgotten how delicious that series can be. Now, if only someone in Second Life would make an appropriate set of eyes for an anguisette and perhaps a few marques as well…

But I digress (a little, anyway). However, certain elements of Kushiel’s Dart did inspire these shots. But when I started putting it together, it was also with a mind to show off the lovely stockings from Senzafine, so the clothing (or lack thereof) have a lot to do with that as well.

A dusting of snow on the ground and cold winds that chill the thick stone walls of the castle. Not so welcoming, perhaps, but beautiful in its starkness. And the gargoyle perching on his fountain does not mind, but keeps up his silent watch no matter what the season is. So far, at least, it is not cold enough that the water has frozen. Perhaps there’s a warm spring somewhere under the castle?

I seem to have brought home the flu from Barcelona, so this will be a fairly brief post, I am afraid. The focus of it is the new Muse set from Noble Creations, available at the Fantasy Gacha Carnival. The set includes the various metal accessories scene here—collar, bra and spine spikes, the latter only partially visible—as well as two versions of the belt and two different skirts. One is the lateral skirt I am wearing and the other is a full skirt. I rather liked the effect of combining this with the chainmail appliers from the Muses. My hair is from a gacha as well, Wasabi Pills for the Chapter Four.

For quite a few years now, shopping in Second Life has been ruled by events. But this year a new way to shop has made is debut: the subscription box. A well-known concept in real life (though I must admit I have never tried one myself), the subscription box seems to have gotten off to a good start in Second Life. If you want a good look at what boxes are available so far, I recommend Strawberry Singh’s post Subscription Boxes in Second Life. It is well-written and informative (as all of her posts!) and it serves little purpose for me to simply repeat the same details here. However, what I wanted to do was give an extra push for an upcoming box: the Treasure Chest.  It will be the first roleplay-oriented subscription box in Second Life and yours truly will be doing unboxing videos it! Yes, I am more than a little excited and waiting eagerly for the first box to arrive this weekend. If you also want to subscribe for the very first Treasure Chest (and the lineup of designers looks great), you have until the 14th to do so.

After putting together my outfit for today’s photos, consisting of We Love Role-Play releases from Noble Creations and the Muses, I decided that a jungle sim was in order. After a bit of searching, I came across Prehistorica: The Dawn Kingdoms, which turned out to be a lot more than just a jungle sim. Fancy a prehistoric adventure—as a dinosaur? Then this might just be the sim (and shop) for you as they have a great range of mesh dinosaur avatars. And even if you just feel like exploring a bit as a time-travelling human, its definitely worth a look around as it is a very cool build, with plenty of dinosaurs roaming around. I am thinking I will be back here for more photos and maybe even a video.

The golden round of The Secret Affair has already provided me with material for several posts and I am not quite done yet. This time I’ve come to the releases by Noble Creations and Paper Moon, which I have paired with a new Omega applier lingerie from the Muses.

When it comes to fashion and appearance, Second Life offers the whole spectrum from realism to over-the-top fantasies of all kinds. I tend to play around somewhere towards the more fantastic end of the spectrum, though my preferred look is largely human. But I do enjoy fantastical outfits and accessories, not to mention hairstyles that would make Rapunzel jealous. Such as this impressive braid from Calico for Hairology. Also featured in this post are items from Aisling and The Muses.

Bliensen + MaiTai has released a necklace and a matching pair of earrings at two different events; the Eulalia necklace at Lost and Found (soon available at the mainstore, the Flickr notes) and the Eulalia earrings at We Love Role-Play. It has been a while since I focused just on a set of accessories with close-ups like these, but these pieces really deserved to be highlighted. Gold and silver versions are included and the earrings come with four different stone options. The Flickr notes that the necklace is inspired by Etruscan jewellery and I think they would make superb accessories for any roleplay look. In this case, I paired them with the Gilded Net outfit from the Muses.