Otherworldly

I’ve tried doing portrait series before, but I always get too ambitious and too caught up in making them feel similar. So, we’ll see where I end up with this one. The genesis of the idea was to do some nice portraits for our game to spruce up the website a bit. Here, I am trying to portray Melissa “Missy” Blackwood, one of King Aegon IV’s mistresses.

To create her look, I am using LeLutka’s Erin head with alaskametro’s Ingrid skin (using the flat chest add-on since Missy was supposed to be quite slim and flat chested), which I think gives her a sweet sort of beauty that suits the description of the character. The hair is one of F&M Oblivion’s releases for Hair Fair, a style inspired by Giulia Farnese, also a famous mistress. It is a very elegant, ladylike style with a silk cap at the back. The raven jewellery is a nod to the arms of House Blackwood and I thought that the Heloise gown from Junbug could fit into Westeros well enough.

The ornate chamber basin from Fantavatar & Moonstruck, with two different washing animations, was the starting point for this scene showing a somewhat voyeuristic glimpse of a lady in her chambers. The “fire eater” fireplace is another great decor item from Fantavatar & Moonstruck. I sized it down somewhat to fit in this room in the Townhouse Cosimo from Del-ka Aedilis and I think it makes for a fantastic centerpiece for the room. The rather sheer gown is an older release from Junbug which sells the idea of a thin undergown very well I think.

A dashing nobleman visits his mistress and gifts her with a magnificent set of jewellery. She sits down at her vanity to admire how the stunning necklace and earrings looks on her, adding a dash of perfume while she is at it. Her lover looks on admiringly.

I love how this came together, the beautiful vanity from Dictatorshop serving as the focal point for the rendezvous. The store is very generously offering group members an L$1000 gift card for L$1 to cheer everyone up. There are plenty of decor-only items in the store for under 1000 and even quite a few with PG animations or a more limited selection of Adult animations. If you want the really fancy versions, with all of the adult options, they cost more but they also include a very large selection of animations so they are well worth it. There are several different furniture series available, to cater to a wide range of tastes.

I would never find the time to change up our sim with the seasons, but I do like having a permanent winter area and it is probably one of my favourite parts of the sim. I love snowy trees and the way light and shadow plays on snow. It was of course the perfect spot to setup the firepit from Roawenwood, so that I could warm myself by it while wrapped in this lovely gown from Junbug. To the existing forest, I added some variety in the shape of a few of the dead trees released by Dysfunctionality for 50 Linden Friday.

Old Treasures is a fairly newly launched brand which already has released a small but very well-made collection of pieces inspired by history and/or fantasy. For this post, Ran and I selected three pieces to showcase; a wearable for each of us and a piece of furniture. The easiest choice was definitely the throne, released for the GoT-inspired round of Enchantment a while back. It is called the Archon of the Fourteen Flames Throne and well…the company we formed a couple of years ago happens to be called Fourteen Flames. We definitely appreciate it when someone makes pieces inspired by A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones but uses more subtle naming schemes like this.

We’ve finally gotten some proper winter temperatures (but no snow, alas) so it seems perfect to warm things up with a review of Dutchie’s latest release, the Cocktail Lovers Chair. As it is packed full of carefully chosen animations, I opted for doing a video to show a selection of the PG couple animations as well as preview some of the additional menus available in the adult version of the chair. In addition to that, I have included a selection of photos with this post. There are naked pixels below, though nothing too raunchy even if there is plenty of options for that among the animations. The Adult chair comes 20 female and 20 male solo animations, 20 cuddles and kisses, 80 FP and sex animations and 11 sequences. It includes auto-attaching props (PG and Adult) and supports auto-tilting for Aeros (Adult only). Both versions of the chair offer 3 texture options for the fabric.

The Jaz hair from Wasabi, their release for the ongoing round of Uber, also includes a version with a hat. The bra & knickers from Junbug (which I picked up at her massive sale) include three versions for the bra and two for the knickers, at varying stages of undress.

I managed to find a little time between preparing various dishes for Christmas to make a new vlog for Otherworldly, focusing on Vista’s new bento head and a few other items, such as recent releases from lassitude & ennui and paper moon. As usual, I have the credits at the end of the post. And yes, the Astrology contest I mention in the video is still going on, so check it out.

I just couldn’t resist using the fabulous Neptune’s Revenge from Rustica for another set of photos. With the fantastic Roslyn gown from Junbug and a pretty companion wearing the fabulous Marquis outfit from Last Ride I think there is a distinct romance cover vibe about these shots.

The Silent Light build from 8f8 was one of my favourite items from the January Deco(c)rate that I unboxed just a few days ago, so of course I had to feature it on its own as well. It seemed to me it would make a nice backdrop for the other key items in this post, which are a current and an upcoming release from the Plastik.

This weekend I went on a bit of a shopping spree as a reward for a busy week, but I may just have given myself even more to do. I have been eyeing some of the building sets from Jammin for quite some time and when the new Dungeon Construction set came out, I took the plunge. What you’re seeing in these photos is a tiny bit of one of the example builds included with this set, but expect to see a lot more once I actually manage to put something together. Lets just say visualising things in 3D isn’t my strong suit!

One of my oh so useful degrees is in classical history & Mediterranean archaeology, with a particular focus on the Bronze Age. I’m deeply fascinated by the Minoan and Mycenaean civilisations, both the historical and the legendary aspects. But I am not going to turn this into a lecture, just say that I was thrilled to see this collaboration gown from Faida and Junbug at The Fantasy Collective.

Time to revisit my series of portraits from The World of Ice and Fire, this time with another Targaryen; Princess Daena, who would come to be known as the Defiant. The eldest of King Daeron the Young Dragon’s and King Baelor the Blessed’s sisters, she was wed to the latter until the extremely pious king annulled the marriage and imprisoned her and her two sisters to keep their beauty from tempting anyone.

A girl can’t have too many thrones, can she? Especially not thrones with adult poses, but you’ll have to wait until another time to see those. That’s not to say this post is entirely decorous; oh no, Junbug‘s gown makes certain of that.

I keep saying I won’t spend more on gachas and then of course something new comes along that I just can’t avoid giving a few tries. Fortunately, my abysmal luck at The Gathering last month did not carry over to the new round of the Fantasy Gacha Carnival. That said, though some stores had yet to setup, I don’t know that I will be playing much more than what I’ve already done (well, alright, there’s a few machines I will have to visit). I think the glut in fantasy products is starting to show and it is becoming harder and harder for stores to stand out, especially when it comes to gachas. There are some fantastic-looking pieces available, but they’re not necessarily wildly different from things I already have in my inventory.

My big prize, however, definitely is a stand-out.

Gatchas are wicked things. I continue to try an exercise restraint (but that doesn’t mean I haven’t ended up with a bunch of duplicates for sale), because for the most part I really would prefer paying more and knowing what I get, but sometimes you end up fooled into thinking you are an extra lucky person who of course will get just what you want… But don’t believe that feeling, it is always a lie.

Case in point? The Alchemy gatcha at the Secret Affair. I just wanted one of the common iron crowns. By the time I had used up my self-imposed limit for that machine, I had ended up with one common (but not the one I wanted, of course), the rare and the ultra rare. So, lucky indeed, but not what I had originally been after! However, since the rare and the ultra rare are incredible works of art, I do have to show them to you, even if it feels like a terrible tease.