Otherworldly

Royal Solitude

I have a love/hate relationship with gachas. It can definitely be a exciting to play, but it can also be really frustrating. Over time, the excitement factor has lessened, but sometimes a set crops up that brings it back. For example, Lux Aeterna’s “Feast for a King” at the Arcade. Lux Aeterna makes beautiful things that are very much in my wheelhouse when it comes to style and sources of inspiration and the two rares in this set created an immediate “must have” feeling. Fortunately for my virtual bank account, the beautiful skybox landed in my inventory almost right away.

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Marked Beauty

If you’d like to spice up your Second Life a bit, there’s one Black Friday sale you do not want to miss out on this year, namely Dutchie’s 20% off on all Adult items. There’s so much to choose from, for just about every taste. I decided to bring out one of my favourites for this setup, the Pet Pillow, to also show off my new tattoo from Nefekalum (they make fantastic use of materials!) that I got at their 50% off Black Friday sale and a new chain harness from Voluptas Virtualis for the Black Fair. The tents and the fire pit come from Paper Moon, and they too are having a fantastic 50% off sale.

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Mythic Empress

Yes, its another blog/vlog with a horse. I just can’t help myself, it is so much fun to show them off in motion rather than just in static images. This time, my Arabian is wearing the gorgeous Emperor Tackset from Cheval D’or. Plus, I have a really cool hair from Mythril (which I may have called Magical Unicorn Hair instead of Mythic Unicorn Hair in the video) which also needs to be seen in motion as it is animated AND includes a HUD with hair poses. Now, as you will see if you check out the video, the riding around part did not work out so well on a somewhat laggy sim with fairly narrow passages. But you never know until you try! Well, I suppose I could have figured it out in advance, but since I did it at 11 pm, I wasn’t at my sharpest. ;)

As usual, I have included a couple of stills below and also the full credits. The sim I used was Ahiru, inspired by the Japanese Edo-period. Its quite lovely!

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Cold Outside

It is only November, but I am starting to crave snow—especially instead of rain, rain and more rain! Right now, I have to settle for the virtual kind, however, so when Del-ka Aedilis sent out a blogger package with a wintry theme, I changed over one of my sky landscapes to match. Fortunately, Studio Skye recently released a 4 Season Bolt-On for the Woodland Path, which came in handy for this scene. The gown from Senzafine may not quite be warm enough on its own, but I rather like it in combination with this cape, an older release from Stitched.

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Interactive Ponies

Mythril has released some fantastic animation sets for the Teeglpets for The Horse Show (open until the 24th of November) and the best way to take a look at those was of course with another video. This one is pretty talky, so I think it says everything you need to know. Oh, except that the issue I had with triggering the bottlefeeding animaton was because I had HUDs turned off for a cleaner interface, so I missed the riding HUD being attached. I should also add that the beautiful sari is of course from Zaara. You’ll have to excuse the mix of Indian and Arabic elements, Teegle hasn’t released any Marwari horses yet. ;)

I’ve also included a couple of stills and the credits are at the end of the post as usual.

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Forever Helena

I love the train on this gown by Faida & Velvet Whip, it gives it such a sleek and classic look. I think that is what made me choose a lighter colour than usual, option for the pale ice-blue option. The delicate Calla jewellery looks fantastic with it and I was pleased to see that the diadem goes very well with the new VIP group gift hair from Truth. The overall look is quite regal, I think, so it is only fitting that I used the Quinta Palace from Fanatik as the setting.

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Rocking the Night Away

It has been a bit of a crazy day, in more than one way. Fortunately, it also involved a visit to the stables in RL, which always works to distract and calm me down. I don’t knit (not since school, anyway), but I can imagine it would be pretty soothing to sit and work like this, with the comforting sounds of the horses in the background. The classic wooden rocking chair is one of two rocking chairs from Dutchie (the other is a mid-century style that goes well with Dutchie’s other furniture sets) released for the November round of FaMESHed. The rocking chairs have 10 female and 10 male solo animations each, including knitting and needlepoint. The props are auto-attaching with the AV-sitter experience and the animations are of course Bento-enabled. The wooden rocking chair includes several wood choices and paint options and the mid-century style offers different fabric options.

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Prettying Up My Pony

As I promised, I have a lot of things to show you from The Horse Show. This time, I thought I would focus on four new releases from Teegle that enhance your interactions with your Teeglepets, as well as some accessories for prettying up your horses. I am also featuring a new set of riding boots from Eudora 3D.

Now, before you dive into this video, I want to point out a couple of things about the hitching post and the grooming add-on. I attempted to use both of them at the same time but was unsuccessful in doing so. I thought it was because the horse needs to have the hitching post set as an animation partner to use that one and for the grooming to work I needed to be set as the animation partner. However, I was told in chat that it should be possible for a horse to be partnered to two things, so I am not sure if a) these add-ons were not setup to allow that or b) I was doing something wrong. I will update accordingly when I know more.

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Last Chance for La Vie

La vie en pose, that is. The current round closes today, so get yourself over there if you haven’t already been. There are quite a few props and poses with a seasonal theme, so if you need to pose in a witchy way, you don’t want to miss checking it out. For this post, however, I went for something sweet and seductive. Creative StyleZ offers a set of five poses (with mirrors) that include strawberries as props in various positions. I picked two of them to showcase and decided to wear the latest two releases from Voluptas Virtualis, the Tania hair ornaments and the Zasha outfit. The hair is a new release from Wasabi for Logo’s 15th anniversary. And speaking of that, the head I am wearing is Chelsea, which is one of two free heads from Logo during the anniversary (the other is Chase, a male head). Its a lovely gift that you do not want to miss out on and make sure to check out all the fabulous releases for it from various merchants (as well as Logo’s own new skin, of course!).

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The Horse Show

Today at noon SLT The Horse Show opens its doors, marking the start of the first ever event dedicated to the Teegle Bento Horse Avatar and the Teeglepet Animesh horses. You could say that I have actually been waiting for this event since before it was announced; I love themed events and thought that something focused on the growing Teegle market would make perfect sense. That makes me especially thrilled to be able to share a look at the lovely autumnal event space and the many vendors that are a part of the event. You will be able to get everything from a brand-new Teeglepet to awesome interactions for your horses and stables for many different tastes. I will definitely be blogging several more things from the Horse Show in the coming week(s), but for now I leave you with the sneak peak. You will find credits at the end of this post, as usual.

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Entombed Oracle

Alia Baroque’s Fallen Gods Inc is celebrating its 13th anniversary in Second Life with an almost month-long calendar of events. A traditional part of these celebrations is the return of the Fortune Teller, which as usual offers two fantastic skins with matching outfits, one for men and one for women. If you get lucky enough to win (it takes some luck and some patience!), you get both sets. I am wearing the female skin here, but instead of the included outfit I went for a new release from Faida for the Tomb of the Ancients event which combines shopping with an escape room experience. I have not tried out the latter, but the event definitely had a nice selection of vendors. I did not have a tomb to photo in, but I did have the awesome Crypt add-on for Fanatik’s Cave system.

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Wicked Fun

Maybe not for me, since I am afraid of heights, but other than that flying high on a broomstick does seem like it could be fun. In Second Life, it certainly is, and taking to the skies with the Spell on You set from Rebel Poses is perfectly safe. The set includes five poses, plus mirrors, and and auto-rezzing broomstick for each pose. I love the way they look with the dress from Senzafine, it gives the whole image a real sense of flow and movement, further aided by the windblown version of Wasabi’s Midnight hair. For the witchy feel to the lighting I am once again using the PhotoPro hud which makes setting that up a breeze.

I couldn’t resist a bit of a naughty photo as well, so after the first two it gets a bit more NSFW.

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Heart of the Forest

I am loving the Autumn we’re having right now. Much less rain than usual (knock on wood, though it is sure to come) which really lets that crispness in the air which is both a scent and a feeling linger. The colours have been a little slow to come in, but now they are starting to get there. In Second Life, Autumn is definitely in full swing and with it all things Halloween. It is a pretty good substitute when I start feeling nostalgic about not having The Secret World to play anymore; Halloween was definitely the natural season for that game too.

With the help of Del-ka Aedilis, I’ve headed deep into the woods to mix up some potions. Perhaps you would like to come by for a visit?

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Abigale

Sometimes you discover frustrating information gaps. In this case, it was also accompanied by a surprising gap in my inventory, strange as that may seem with the size of it! You see, I tried to find either a sim or some decor to use for a photo of deviousMind’s distinctly steampunk-inspired Abigale outfit for the Engine Room. And I came up with nothing! Now, I probably could have gone shopping for something, but I was trying to mind my spending a bit.

In the end, that didn’t work out so well, because I suddenly had the idea of pairing the outfit with the skeleton horse if it could only be made a bit more mechanical-looking. Then I remembered the metallic skins from Mythril at the Shop & Hop. Perfect! Of course, I also needed some poses, because riding didn’t give quite the look I wanted. Back to the Shop & Hop I went to buy a pose pack from Mythril since they were discounted there.

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Island Wanderer

The massive new release from Fanatik is now out (11 new products, plus two new group gifts), which prompted me to return to the showcase sim yet again, this time in the guise of a wanderer exploring the rugged landscape. The new landscaping items and the sim built with them are inspired by St. Kilda, a remote Scottish archipelago in the North Atlantic, so it is no wonder that it reminds me a lot of the coast of Northern Ireland where we went on a tour a few years back to visit various filming locations for Game of Thrones. To visit the sim, head over to Fanatik’s main store and click the teleporter right at the front of the store. That is also where you will find all the new products.

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