Otherworldly

A little while ago, Fanatik released a wonderful collection of Roman buildings. With these, you can build your very own Roman town, with houses, warehouses, temples and a forum. There was also a package of Roman roads and a gorgeous villa Rustica, for the country lord living in style outside of the town. The textures for these sets are fantastic and they are easily resized if you find the defaults a bit too large. I am showing just a few shots here, to give a sense of the overall look of the pieces, but I am thinking of doing a video walk through of a build as well.

Another piece of Roman-inspired decor is the well bearing the SPQR inscription seen in the first two shots. It is from Del-ka Aedilis and also nicely resizable for when you’re rather short by SL standards. It looks great in the forum!

The hair is from F&M Oblivion, an elaborate updo that I don’t think was intended as Roman in style but sort of could pass for some of the braided arrangements we see on busts. My dress is from TRES for We Love Role-Play, a sleek fantasy gown with a nice ornate belt detail and a lovely back. For this release, TRES has added sizes for three new bodies, Belleza Gen X and Prima Femme Busty & Petite. I am actually wearing Prima Femme Petite for this post, together with a few of the very nice body deformers that add extra versatility to the shapes you can achieve. I will be digging into this body with a full review shortly! In the meantime, check it out at FaMESHed!

The Popsicle hair from Wasabi for The Fifty is a style that says party to me. In this case, it turned out to be a pool party where someone forgot to change into more suitable attire before getting into the hot tub. The glass of wine might have something to do with that…

The dress is one of Salt & Pepper’s aquasense outfits and while it won’t react to non-SL water unless the water is scripted for that interaction, the HUD does allow you to set the clothing to wet or dry as you prefer. In this case, you can see how the soaked dress clings like a wet garment would.

The wood-fired hot tub comes from Dutchie and can be had either as a PG or Adult version. Both seat one or two people and include several animations with auto-attaching props like the wine glass.

The best kind of rain is a soft summer rain and sometimes it can feel wonderful to be on the beach when it happens, perhaps even take a swim in the rain.

Be My Mannequin’s “Feel How it Feels” pose (inspired by Stranger Things and its usage of Kate Bush’s fantastic Running Up That Hill) was perfect for the image of just sitting on the beach and letting a gentle rain wash down over you. The Lemongrass hair from Wasabi is a lovely, summery style which also comes with a hat for an even more beachy look and the Amelia shirt and shorts set from Salt & Pepper is part of their interactive Aquasense range, meaning it can go from dry to wet and vice versa when interacting with SL water and various scripted objects. Selected colours are on sale for the weekend.

Under a red sky cut through by lightning, the dark priestess sought to learn the future, calling up eldritch magic to do her bidding.

I love this EEP setting (Daves HD Thunderstorms 9), it is just the kind of dark drama that this scene needed. The centerpiece is the Silver Scrying Bowl from HEXtraordinary, with the magic effects coming from Dreaming Thicket. The hair from F&M Oblivion was first out at the Hair Fair and is now available at the Fantasy Room. And my outfit? Who else could it be from but Chandra Meehan of deviousMind. Its dark, sexy and full of attitude.

They were not ready for what answered them…

F&M Oblivion has two cool fantasy hair styles at the Hair Fair with this one, called Selene, being the most spectacular. As it reminded me of horns as well as the curve of the moon, something magical seemed an obvious choice. Fortunately, I had just won a Discord giveaway from Petrichor for the very cool Kelstreia outfit (which consists of many more pieces than what I am showing) and I think it goes really well with the hair to sell the idea of perhaps a succubi or other demonic creature having been summoned. The summoning circle is from Roawenwood and includes animations both for a central figure and for people praying and summoning in the outer circle. Placing it deep within the cave system from Fanatik added an underworldly touch to the proceedings.

Six sims all dedicated to making you look as fabulous as possible can only mean one thing: Hair Fair is back. With all sales donating a part of the price to Wigs for Kids (and, in the case of bandanas from the Bandana Booths, that part is 100%) the event makes it easy for you to shop and donate at the same time. In addition to hair styles, the event offers hair addons, hairbases, beards, hair accessories and even some hair-themed props and poses. To make shopping easy, the layout of the booths make for very smooth browsing of all the stores. In fact, if you put up your draw distance high enough, you can stand at one point and cam shop the whole event. You’ll find all the links and previews on the official website, linked above.

The ancient temple lies half-buried by the desert, its secrets swallowed by the shifting sands. But it is said that at times, when the wind has driven the dunes just so, the legendary Mouth of Truth is once more revealed and those who dare may approach it.

The Mouth of Truth, by Fantavatar & Moonstruck, is based on a marble mask from Rome, likely depicting the face of the titan Oceanus. It has a single pose in which your avatar sticks a hand into the mouth. In her notecard accompanying the product, Luna Barak also shares this:

“According to enduring medieval legend, it will bite off the hand of any liar who places their hand in its mouth, or, alternatively, any who utters a lie while their hand is in the mouth.”

For this scene, I made an oracle out of it instead and placed it among the Ruins by Fanatik. My Truthseeker wears the gorgeous new Pandora gown by Tres, which features three different skirt styles: solid side panels, sheer side panels and no side panels. The skin as well as the eyeshadow and the metallic tattoos are all free prizes in the Free Dove & alaskametro hunt. Don’t miss it, there’s a total of ten prizes, including one more skin. The hair is Echo by Wasabi, which comes with two style options and hair clips that can be turned on or off.

Be My Mannequin has a new set of three single poses out for the Grid event, opening today. Exclusive to the event is a fatpack called “Sing to Me” which gives you a 10% discount over buying the poses individually. I made use of two of the poses, both which have a very moody feel to them. Someone who never went to the party after all, but stayed alone at home, brooding.

I haven’t worn the Chai body from Cinnamon & Chai for a while but the addition of support for the body to various Slink and One Bad Pixel releases made it easy to expand my wardrobe for her quite a bit. These red pants, for example, are available for just L$75 right now as a promotion for the addition. And if you already own any of the pieces now getting a new size added, simply redeliver them to get your hands on the update.

The Bubbles hair is the latest from Wasabi, out for Access. The style includes three style options, optional bangs and a lot of hairpins which can be texture changed or turned off.

My badly timed taste of Covid, which has left me with an annoying cough and tiredness as well, has meant that I’ve seen far less of this year’s Fantasy Faire than I would have liked. We’ve now passed the halfway mark, the Faire officially ends on the 8th of May, so I will have to get some serious exploring in the next few days. First up, I had to return to Opet, Alia Baroque’s stunning Egyptian-inspired sim. What better place to show off some of the poses in the Isis set from Astalianda as well as the spectacular Dai crown by Bliensen + MaiTai? The outfit is not from the Fantasy Faire, however, but a new NextUp release from deviousMind for the Secret Garden.

Don’t miss the chance to explore Opet as well as the other Fairelands. And while you’re doing so, make sure to find some donation vendors or donation kiosk to contribute to the fight against cancer.

Ostara’s Altar ends in just a couple of days, on the 30th of April. Have you visited yet for a dose of spring and witchcraft? If you are looking for a few magical pieces, make sure to check out Pete’s Peculiar Pieces, I particularly liked the athame and the witch bottle with various interesting contents. For a witchy dress, a bit ragged and painted with symbols, Witch in a Box has you covered.

This year at Fantasy Faire, Del-ka Aedilis invites you to visit a proper Villa Rustica. To show this large build off in detail, I did a little video (and managed not to cough at all, despite being a bit sniffly still) which you can view below.

I have also included some still photos and of course details on the Villa, the Triclinium and what I am wearing.

She came to Bassett Town at dusk, driving a trader’s cart pulled by a piebald mare. There was a raven sitting on her shoulder and she held her rifle in a loving way, but she was dressed like a respectable woman, with a large cross around her neck.

Verdandi is the “middle sister” of the Norns in Norse mythology, her domain is the present and her name essentially means “that which is happening/becoming”. It is also the name of the beautiful makeup set from Seydr for the Fantasy Faire that I am wearing for this post. There’s no Norse-inspired Faireland this year, but between that makeup and the Norse Warrior tack set from Cheval D’or, a Vikingesque post was inevitable. Fortunately, I have a beautiful snowy landscape all of my own. By no means as spectacular as a Faireland, but I think it served these photos well.

I’ve come down with quite a fever, so I hope you will pardon the brevity of this post as I overestimated my remaining energy. Be My Mannequin? put out a more adult pose than they usually do for the XXX Event and of course I had tackle that challenge! It also gave me an excellent opportunity to show off the latest stockings by Luxuria (and nothing else!).

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.