Otherworldly

Dark Waters

A bit of a different beach photo, with dark clouds in the sky and dark waves rolling in over the sand. I wanted dramatic lighting to match the slightly windblown style of Imani, the latest Truth Collective collaboration between Truth and Wasabi. I also thought it suited the other collaboration I am wearing, namely the Bariel Bodysuit by Petrichor and Ersch. The dark blue shade I selected on the Gloss HUD, one of several available texture packs, put me in mind of a sea at night.

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Hunting Partners

What better way to go hunting in the deep woods than with a bow and your trusted wolf?

The gnarly bridge leading over the stream and providing access to the woods is by Lore, as is the tree arch at the end of it. The bridge is almost made to look like it has grown into this shape, with the ends looking like roots. With the tree arch placed at one end, the impression is strengthened. You’ll find both at the current round of We Love Role-Play.

My tunic and my boots are also available at We Love Role-Play, from Viki and Kegel, respectively. The gorgeous long hair is another collaboration between Truth and Wasabi and features four different style options.  The poses and the bow are an older set from HopScotch. And finally, the wolf is of course Teegle’s new release from the Fantasy Faire, here with an applier from The Flying Pony.

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Fantasy Faire 2023: Noble Houses

I love taking photos at the Fantasy Faire while the Fairelands are still around, but to show off the beautiful new buildings from Del-ka Aedilis I had to return home and play around with building a whole new renaissance quarter to accommodate them! There’s a total of eight new buildings added to the Medici series and I’ve worked three of those into my setup together with a pair of previous releases.  In addition, I have added decor pieces from Harshlands and Contraption. But first, lets take a look at what I am wearing.

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Fantasy Faire 2023: The Secrets of Opera

There’s a secret lair on Opera, well-stocked with wine and luxuriously furnished. Make sure you explore the sim thoroughly; it was beautiful before it was fully decorated and now it is just stunning. I wish it would stay around so that I could move in there, but alas, the Fairelands are ephemeral.

But I did at least get to move into the lair for a round of photos and naturally I needed a decadent and mysterious appearance for this. I picked Faida’s Brielle gown in Noir, one of two colours available as an RFL donation item. This slinky gown features a lace across the breasts, naughtily hinting but not revealing too much. I wanted to bring out the lovely Khara body again and Faida provides plenty of clothing for her already.

A mask was of course needed and this one comes from Hanzel. This is the standard version but there is also an RFL version. It makes beautiful use of materials and the HUD includes a nice range of possible texture options. And to add a touch of danger, the fingertips from the Vonnika hand jewelry set by Drunken Brokkr. The Kupra size will work for Khara as the hands are the same.

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The Blacksmith’s Daughter

Just waiting at the castle’s forge for her father to return home from the tavern, where he has been spending too much time of late.

The Brokk Blacksmith set from Del-ka Aedilis is a nice set of non-animated props for creating a norse/medieval forge. I did find the lack of an anvil curious, so I added one from another set. The fires can be doused or lit and each piece comes in either plain wood or with a norse-inspired pattern.

I am wearing three new releases from We Love Role-Play. First we have the Atlas Gorget from Kreep, a very fancy piece of smithing which includes male and female fits and several texture options. The tunic is by Senzafine and I love the asymmetric cut. Finally, we have the Gudrun boots from Rakshasa. These are available for several male and female bodies and include a HUD for texture changes. Very nice and useful boots.

My hair is also a new release, the latest Truth & Wasabi collaboration called Seri. It comes in two versions, like this or with bangs, and is available at Kustom9.

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Khara

When I was given the opportunity to show off the new Khara body from Inithium, that also proved an excellent reason for revisiting the Iron Bed from Dutchie (nsfw images in linked post) since both the body and the bed called for a video. In it, I demonstrate the animations in the “Friends” menu of the bed and give you a closer look at Khara, the Inithium hud and the contents of the Khara Starter Pack. You’ll find a couple of additional images as well as the credits below the video.

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Sweet Rowena

The Truth Collective is a collaboration between Truth and, at the moment, Faga and Wasabi. The Rowena style is by Truth and Wasabi, with Wasabi making the mesh and using Truth’s regular textures. The style comes with and without bangs and with the long ponytails either thicker or thinner.  Its a pretty cool idea, this kind of collaboration, and it will be interesting to see what other styles come out of it.

The outfit is called YingShui and it is from another NextUp collection by deviousMind.  Yellow isn’t usually my thing, but if you call it Gold or, as here, Saffron, I am all for it. ;) The collection includes two types of commons, the shorts & top shown here and a dress, as well as several rares. The tattoo is again Ceres from Nefekalum, but here I am using the golden base and the red overlay together.  The pose comes with the couch, which is by Roawenwood.

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Flower Faerie

The faerie leads you through a flowering field towards a secret door beneath a hill. Will you dare to follow her? If you do, will you ever emerge into the world again and will a hundred years have passed in a day?

We Love Role-Play is open for another round and I love how the releases from deviousMind and lassitude & ennui go together (you’ll see the latter in the second photo) for a dryad/faerie look. To find the perfect spot to photo this, I paid a long overdue visit to Ode and found it as lovely as I remembered.

deviousMind’s April outfit is a bikini made up of flowers, butterflies and bees. You can choose between three levels of coverage for both top and bottom. The Dryad shoes from lassitude & ennui are low, lace-up boots that look as if they’re made from leaves. Both the bikini and the shoes are for Maitreya Lara only.

Both poses used are from Be My Mannequin? The first is Pandora (includes the key prop) from the Pandora’s Box fatpack and the second is Vastness from the Star Gazer fatpack.

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Getting Ready

With Dutchie‘s latest release, chances are the male avatars in your life will take significantly longer to get dressed. The new mainstore release is a walk-in closet for men with a wide array of (display) clothing options. Indeed, if you get the full closet package you also get boxes of additional display clothing on hangers or folded as well as extra display shoes. You can use these to switch out the contents in the wardrobe or to decorate with. Or why not as props, as I do in the second photo? The clothing, both the pieces already in the wardrobes and the extras, can also be tinted for further customization. If you just want the display clothing, you can buy this separately.

There are 10 different wardrobe setups included, 7 with different clothing contents (5 wide, 2 narrow) and 3 closed (1 wide, 2 narrow). You get 6 texture options for the wood, where the white and black make excellent bases for tinting. The wardrobes can be arranged together any way you wish, so if you don’t have the right room for a full walk-in closet setup, it will still work beautifully.

The only downside is that you can’t actually wear any of the stylish pieces filling up the wardrobes! But it does make it look like you have a very expensive Second Life clothing collection.

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Ice Maiden

Today I am out on thin ice. Specifically, on LR & Fanatik’s new Ice Plates, a cool product that includes scripted, breakable ice plates. To give a sense of how they work, I did another video!

I also talk a bit about my new outfit from R3D Studio, a viking-inspired dress and cloak. It looks very warm and sturdy, just right for a cold, northern winter. For full credits, go to the end of this post.

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The Prize

I picked up this couple pose from Serendipity some weeks ago, but I didn’t have a clear idea in mind for it. Then Ran went shopping for hair and came back with No.Sand from No.Match while I got my hands on the Dynasty avatar set from Fallen Gods, this year’s Fortune Teller prize. I dressed up in part of the Dynasty outfit, though instead of wearing the (very cool) skin included I added the Temptation tattoo that is a free gift at Fallen Gods booth at the Halloween Shop & Hop. For the rest of Ran’s outfit, we looked to Stitched, and for the decor I used Dreaming Thicket and Paper Moon.

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Sunset in Sunspear

Until October 8th you can visit the Ice and Fire event to pick up, among other things, the Sunspear seating set from Del-ka Aedilis. The set includes a couch, a rug, a side table and a tea table, all with coordinating textures with a clear arabic/moorish inspiration and a colour palette that will remind you of a desert. I arranged the set in the Desert Villa from Lore and picked a sunset EEP setting, perfect for an invitation to evening tea…and perhaps more.

The Samira outfit from deviousMind is a little too Thousand and One Nights for Dorne, but it is certainly very lovely. Very appropriate for the Dornish theme, on the other hand, is the Serpent Choker from Schadenfreude, so simple and elegant. You can find it at the Fallen Gods Inc 14th Anniversary Market. If snakes are your thing, you will find a lot more cool stuff at the market!

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The Guardian of the Woods

With new and old items from the Dreaming Thicket, a tattoo from Fallen Gods and a pose from Be My Mannequin? I created this scene of a guardian of an enchanted wood. The gown as well as the tattoo are from the Age of Avalon event, which inspired me to think of a secret haven which not everyone could reach. The amulet—available in sun and moon versions—went well with the priestess/enchantress image and the forbidding stance of the pose makes her seem like she’s not going to let just anyone pass. The landscaping consists of items from Fanatik and Studio Skye.

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On the Road

Journeying alone, she keeps to the less known roads, always with her bow and arrows within easy reach on her horse. The slight, elegant mare is a little too fine to pass as a common traveller’s horse and her own garb might also arouse too much interest. On this evening, she passes near the eastern shore of the peninsula. Some distance out into the water, a pair of houses on tall stilts are visible, their lights beckoning in an inviting fashion.

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Bethany

A final portrait for now, and probably a bit of a blog hiatus for a week or so. The mistress that followed after Missy Blackwood was Barba Bracken’s younger sister, Bethany, groomed for the position by her father and sister. Alas, poor Bethany soon ended up a head shorter for sleeping with one of the Kingsguard rather than the King, who by then was “fat and foul-tempered”.

For Bethany I wanted a look that was less haughty and a bit sweeter and prettier than Barba. I used the same skin as for her sister (Bella from Logo), but I switched to another Logo head, Chelsea. The hair is from Truth and the dress from Senzafine. I couldn’t think of anything symbolic to give her for a necklace, so I opted for a design from the Plastik that felt fairly medieval in style.

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