Otherworldly

The holiday season here, and sims and designers both are turning themselves over to winter. I decided to visit one lovely winter sim, It All Starts with a Smile, to feature a couple of items I’ve picked up this last week to get my avatar ready for below-freezing weather.

I paid a visit (aka, I spent way too long trying to teleport there) to the Arcade yesterday and tried my luck on a couple of machines. Fortunately for my virtual wallet, which took a hit with the recent sales, there weren’t too many machines that tempted me (and some of those that did tempt me did not offer Slink sizes). But Blueberry’s Show Time set caught my eye and the machine was kind enough to let me put together a full look after a few tries.

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.

Its time for that weekend of shopping madness again. In the last years, Black Friday has become a thing here in Sweden as well, even though its not a holiday weekend for us. I am not one to scoff at a good sale, but I have been trying to teach myself not to shop for the sake of shopping or just because something is on sale. I am not ready to move out into the woods and live an entirely self-sustaining life, but I have found that Second Life can be a good substitute for RL retain therapy. If I feel the need to shop just to perk myself up, much better if I do that in SL. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of excellent deals on virtual goods and if skins are your vice then the Skin Addiction Black Friday sale has you covered.

I am having hot chocolate as I type this. Christmas-flavoured (aka gingerbread flavoured) hot chocolate from Monbana. No whipped cream though, since it is the middle of the week and I plan to be a (mostly) good girl until Christmas, when I will eat entirely too much food and candy. But I had to at least have some hot chocolate today because it is cold and dark outside and my avatar is looking so very cosy with her mug of hot chocolate (at least, I think I picked the chocolate) and her cosy sweater dress.

Truth recently started up a VIP group which will be getting an exclusive hair per month. I believe the joining fee is lower for the first month (I think it was L$265 at the moment) and with two hairs already available for members that is a fabulous deal. I hadn’t been too keen on the first member style, but then this Sugar hair was added to the group and since I am always in desperate need of good updos it was an easy decision. It also turned out to be an excellent hair for showing off a pair of new earrings and also this new fantasy skin, both from the Plastik.

Time for another full-on fantasy look, combining pieces from three different but very creative designers: Aisling, Noble Creations and the Annex. It started with the pieces from the Annex gacha and grew from there into a truly frosty winter queen with a dark edge as evidenced by the armour-like pieces from Noble Creations.

Evangeline Miles of Evie’s Closet has returned to creating for Second Life after a bit of a hiatus. Before the advent of mesh, her flexi gowns stood out from the crowd as she always managed to give them an ethereal feel. It is not easy to translate that to mesh, but I think that the textures and colours of her latest release capture some of that quality. There’s almost a feeling of watercolours over the texturing, and that gives the gown a lovely flow that suggests movement.

The lovely part of autumn is in the past now, with all the leaves torn down by wind and darkened to a rather unattractive brown by rain. Fortunately, it is easy to recall it in Second Life, where the autumn trees are always at their prettiest, with crisp leaves of red and gold.

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.

It is November 15th and the 2nd Treasure Chest is here. I have an unboxing video to share with you, though this time around it is just me and not Ran as he’s been too busy with work. Hopefully you will enjoy it anyway! I also have to apologise for croaking may way through some of the video; I picked up a flu as a souvenir in Barcelona and it seems to want to stay with me.

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.

It is no secret that I love virtual lingerie and for several years the Insolence brand, created by camilla Yosuke, was one of my favourites in Second Life. Then the releases stopped coming and once I moved to a mesh body I could no longer wear the existing pieces either. But a few weeks ago, a surprise notice arrived. Insolence was back, with mesh lingerie. The initial release was only for the Maitreya body, but the release notice promised that versions for other mesh bodies would be coming along. And just before I took off for Barcelona, the Slink versions (for the original and the hourglass body) arrived.