Otherworldly

One can do worse for exotic glamour than taking inspiration from the flamboyant peacock, as Chandra Meehan has done for her Parvani set, available at the NextUp event both in a NextUp version and in a fatpack of all commons and rares. There’s 25 pieces in total in the set; 22 commons divided across tops & panties and belts & tails, 1 rare full outfit, 2 rare props. Two of the common sets feature peacock markings and I am showing one of these, “Lapis Peacock”, together with one of the props. The column includes two leaning poses for showing off your fancy new outfit.

With the holidays coming up, one question is likely to crop up more than once—what am I going to wear? I think I have decided what I am wearing for Christmas IRL, but my virtual self is even more indecisive. Not to mention that she has a much, much bigger wardrobe in her overflowing inventory.

What better way to illustrate that well-filled wardrobe than with the latest release from Dutchie, the complete women’s walk-in closet (matching the complete men’s walk-in closet released earlier this year). This modular closet set includes 11 different closets, 3 that are closed and 8 that show different sets of clothing, shoes and bags. A colour-change menu offers the choice of 6 wood colours and if you are comfortable editing and tinting you can customize the clothing within the closets as well. Additionally, extra clothing and accessories are included in the full package (and available for purchase separately), for example the red and black dresses shown in the image. These pieces are perfect props for photos or for personalizing your living space in Second Life with a bit of stylish clutter.

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.

Both Ran and I did some shopping when LeLutka had their Black Friday sale ( I picked up Zora and Inez while he got Paxton and Skyler), but with December being so busy we’ve not had a chance to play much with making new shapes until now. But here I’ve got a nice combination of Nar Mattaru’s Delphine on Inez while Ran is wearing Clef de Peau’s Evan on Paxton. I also picked up some new pieces on Salt & Pepper’s current retirement sale, where selected releases are at 80% off and the Miya dress struck me as a great one to wear for this intimate and possessive couple pose from Be My Mannequin?

I am not sure which is the cosiest and laziest day of the year for me, Christmas Day or New Year’s Day. Probably Christmas Day given all the leftovers available and the lingering food coma. Poking around in SL and taking some pretty pictures is about as intensive as things have gotten today. I wish I had a fireplace IRL to curl up in front, but I had to settle for enjoying it through my avatar. And while the Mangiafuoco Fireplace from Fantavatar & Moonstruck is pretty cool, I am not quite sure it would fit in my living room. ;)

HollyDays is a new release from deviousMind that you can pick up for L$50 per colour for Wanderlust Weekend. Very festive and with two options for the holly pasties, a covered and a peekabo version. The thigh highs from Luxuria match it nicely in colour and theme; these are available at the Arcade and also come as tights. The classic updo is the latest style from Wasabi, an unrigged alpha hair with options for bangs and streaks.

I love how this image came out, both moody and seasonal. I’ve been struggling a bit with ideas again, but I think it is partly because I have been trying to force myself to blog the wrong things. For next year, I will need to rethink my blogging commitments. On the one hand, if I don’t have some things I actually have to do, I can get too indecisive and just never get anything done because I keep waiting for the perfect idea. On the other hand, if I have to work too hard to get inspired it can be draining.

Anyway, when I saw this lovely dress from Faida and Velvet Whip at Redeux, I knew I wanted to do something with it. But I’ve wandered about in it for a few days now without just the right idea (see above), until I remembered the Starlight Lantern from Contraption that I picked up a few weeks ago. Off to my little winter landscape in the sky I went and then the magic happened.

We brought the tree in today, though haven’t dressed it yet. Instead, I dressed my virtual tree today, setting up my little Christmas corner with various pieces from Libertine. I love the aesthetic of Libertine, especially the Christmas collection which really captures the feel of old-fashioned Christmas card. If I could have my Christmas looking like that IRL too, I’d love it. No modern minimalism for me. For this year, I picked up the dark and snowy foliage add-ons for some variety and also a few extra ornaments, both interactive and unscripted. The Christmas Collections have been rearranged following the ban on gachas and Alia has put up a detailed post about how they are now being sold.

I also decided to get a little holiday festive with a new dress for my Chai body and a pair of heels that make my feet hurt just from looking at them. But in Second Life they’re no problem and the red leather does look very nice. The Wasabi hair is the second of their styles from the Arcade, very sleek and elegant, and I am wearing the new gift head from LeLutka.

The 11th edition of the SL Christmas Expo has opened its doors today and you don’t want to miss out on visiting this event between the 3rd and the 14th of December. There’s a total of 15 regions filled with merchants, breedables and entertainment such as auctions, music and other special events, offering visitors many ways to help raise money for the American Cancer Society with a special focus on helping children with cancer. You can find the list of participating merchants, a schedule of events and much more at the official website. For my part, I will do my best to entice to you to visit by giving you some looks at a few of the things you can buy at the Expo!

This year I decided to combat the urge to shop for real things I don’t need during Black Friday by instead buying lots and lots of virtual things. I did get a few things IRL as well, but only planned purchases I had had my eye on for a while. The same was not strictly true for my Second Life shopping spree. ;) Some of it will be seen in this post, but there’s plenty left for later too. I’ve also got a brand new release to talk about, the first new hair from Wasabi for a while and it comes with some big changes for the brand.

Its a fair trade. I made Froukje Hoorenbeek of Dutchie laugh when I asked for suggestions on Plurk for cheap or free hair for outfitting an alt soon after she had sent me her latest creation. Then she made me blush as I explored the various options of said creation together with Ran and a couple of totally innocent alts. ;)

The item in question is the Sleigh Bed, released at FaMESHed’s October round. Wood with a smooth, polished finish and soft, light-weight fabrics give an elegant (and perhaps somewhat Scandinavian-inspired?) look to this bed which offers nine different colour options for the blanket and bed spread. The modelling and the textures are, of course, top notch, with great attention paid to the finishing touches.

The bed comes in four versions—PG, Adult FM, Adult FFM, and Adult FMM—and the photos shown below are from the Adult FFM and the Adult FMM versions. These two versions have completely different animations from each other and from the PG and Adult FM beds, so if you want any solo animations or two-person cuddles or sex you want to look at the PG and the Adult FM versions. But if you prefer more of a crowd in bed, then you will have a lot of fun with the FFM and FMM beds.

First up are four photos of the FFM bed and then four photos of the FMM version follows on. I’d say the FFM bed features more intimacy/sex between the two girls than the FMM does between the two guys; for the FMM bed such animations are constrained within a single meny. The focal point of each bed is definitely the single guy or girl, but there’s good variety among the 70 animations.

Full feature lists, including lists of the various menus on each bed, are provided on the product page for the Sleigh Bed.

The latest release from Dutchie-creator Froukje Hoorenbeek is one of her most luxurious-looking creations. The leather of the tub chair looks deliciously touchable and it includes eight rich, gorgeous shades. I opted for placing the chair in the corner of a private library, making it a pleasure room in more than one sense. As you might surmise from this, this is the adult version of the chair which features 100 maledom-oriented couple animations, some with auto-attaching props and some with automatic tilting for Aeros and the Physics Cock. 

I’ve tried to give a sense of the flavour of the chair through eight images that feature a selection of the animations from across several of the different menus. There’s so much more to this chair than “just” the sex, with animations capturing both tenderness and dominance.

For these photos, I am wearing the new Aqua hair from Wasabi, which includes an optional hat that I have not included here. The underbust corset from Salt & Pepper offered just the right amount of naughtiness, further emphasized by the Sweet Talk stockings from Luxuria. And Ran is looking stylish in Deadwool, always a good choice for a classy look.

I admit it, I have a thing for big swords. Well, any swords, really. It just looks so cool to be carrying one around and you always look great when posing with one. So when ContraptioN released the Mercenary’s Flambard for the Warehouse Sale, I went right over to grab it and insisted that Ran do the same. After all, while you can pose alone and look cool, a duel looks even cooler. Of course, we needed to dress right too. For Ran’s part that meant a trip to the Engine Room to pick up the amazing Bloodlust outfit from toksik whereas I received a review copy of the Aeon gacha from deviousMind, a very cool steam punk outfit that also is available at the Engine Room.

NeXus is CheerNo’s brand for skins and related items and they have three new releases at Skin Fair: the Icon body skin, the Theo face skin and the Elio eyes. Ran decided to try out one of the shapes we released for Skin Fair (check it out here) with NeXus Icon and NeXus Theo on the Legacy body and LeLutka Connor head. A pretty nice combination, I think!

For the current round of Redeux (which ends tomorrow), Del-ka Aedilis has released the first building in their new Medici series. As the name suggests, this series will have a Renaissance feel but it will also suit various types of fantasy roleplay. The Townhouse Cosimo is perhaps primarily intended for city builds, but I liked the idea of setting it up as a secluded manor house. Ideally, I would have wanted matching stone walls and a more elaborate garden, but that will have to be for later on. As it is, I think it turned out very romantic, a perfect place for a secret rendezvous.

This is a most definitely NSFW look at Dutchie’s latest release, a wood-fire heated hot tub. It does come in a PG as well as an Adult version, but…well, you know me. ;)

This style of outdoor hot tub is quite popular in Sweden and sees use all year around. I knew I wanted to shoot this in a winter surrounding, contrasting the steaming hot water with chilly, snow-covered surroundings. Given some of the activities in the Adult version, it might have gotten a little cool at times; you would generally prefer to submerge as much of yourself as possible in the hot water. Then again, if things heat up in a different way, you might not notice the cold for a while!

The hot tub is available at the current round of FaMESHed and you can read the details of the functionality and included animations on Dutchie’s site.