Summer Mixtape: Track Five - Go Nuts for Donuts

So, I know I'm a bit late, I sincerely hope that you, precious reader, and the fabulous administrators of Atelier Kreslo forgive me. I was chosen as a blogger for AK's Donut Fair, and the offerings there are just lovely. Some of my favourite designers- Schadenfreude, flowey, Pixicat, and Breno- have moved out of their usual niches and have baked up some beautiful pixel pastries for your delight. I've chosen some of the most inspired and unusual donuts, though there are plenty that take after more traditional sweets, and are just as stunning, and will fit beautifully with a summery outfit or a warm, beautiful home. Not much commentary beyond saying how incredible they are, please take yourself over to this fun little event.

Wolfy Breno (of the furniture store Breno) released a pair of low-poly donut dioramas, and they are nothing if not charming. The details are delicate and sweet, and will totally steal your heart. For the pictures, I attempted to become a larger version of the scene on the donut, trying to be both lighthouse and kraken for the first, and a quaint forest in the second.

 

Breno's Release the Donut!

Breno's Sugarland

Areve, the beautiful genius behind Pixicat, has brought a pair of anatomically-inspired confectioneries. She brings her usual level of breathtaking detail to her work, and the fact that they are so well-made can make one forget entirely the gruesome potential that lurks beneath their sugary delights. I had a spectacularly fun time taking these pictures.

Pixicat's Eye Donut

Pixicat's Mouth Donut (My absolute favourite picture from the shoot)

Finally, I offer for your pleasure and consideration, Allegory Malaprop (the wonderfully impish lady behind Schadenfreude) has gifted us all with the creation of her darling Matryoshkrullers: donuts that have taken on the shape of those well-known Russian nesting dolls, probably as an attempt to keep from being eaten! Whether or not you're willing to give their ploy any legitimacy, you should pick up these five increasingly little sweeties.

Schadenfreude's Red, Blue, Choc, Green, and Black Matryoshkrullers (Can you spot the Norah?)

Taxi to Atelier Kreslo!

Release the Donut Outfit:

Hair: !Ohmai Sue (Currently at Hair Fair)

Eyebrows: [Buzz] Katie Brows - Tinted

Dress: The Sea Hole Mesh Tentacle Dress (no longer available)

Sugarland Outfit:

Hair: (fashionably dead) Twins - Solo Dancer

Eyebrows: [Buzz] Katie Brows - Tinted

Top: -tres blah- Preppy Sweater w/ blouse - Green

Shorts: {mon tissu} Hanalei Shorts - Brown

Trees and Deer: +Half-Deer+ Low Poly Lullaby (Gacha prizes at the Chapter Four)

Eye Donut Outfit:

Hair: (fashionably dead) Princess - Brunette 4 (Currently at Hair Fair)

Eyebrows: [Buzz] Katie Brows - Tinted

Mouth Donut Outfit:

Hair: (fashionably dead) Crystal's Yearbook Photo - Brunette 4

Eyebrows: . candy mountain . Questionable Rockstar Brows

Undershirt: -tres blah- Bandeau Top - Floral

Shirt: -tres blah- Oversized Tank - Watercolor

Poster: (fashionably dead) I Scream for Ice Cream (gacha prize, you can find the machine in the mainstore)

Matryoshkruller Outfit:

Hair: tram. D424 - Tinted

Dress: beetlebones Mildred Babydoll Dress - White

On All:

Skin: -Glam Affair- Brandi - Frost 05

Eyes: [Buzz] Mysteria - Ice

Eyeliner: NOX. Electric Liner Black

Summer Mixtape: Track Four - Home Making

I started out with a coral shirt, and all of my furniture obliged me.

   My avatar is homeless. Luckily for her, Second Life is one of the only places on any world, real or virtual, in which that's okay. I'm lucky, in that the beautiful and prodigious Kitti Wytchwood lets me bum around at her place, and today, I chose to doll up a corner with the little bit of furniture that I own.
   Trust me, I am perfectly aware of how precisely silly it is to buy virtual furniture when one has nowhere to put it, and honestly, I cannot defend doing this to myself. I suppose it's borne from an intense desire to surround myself with and personally posses beautiful things. That said, I did have an aspiration at one point to have my own house. I planned to seek out a plot once I started this blog, but I'm not sure that I want to anymore, simply because I see how often I spend at Kitti's skybox, and I'm not sure I want to cut myself off from everyone else so much. Also, as I've learned from this, I'm shit at decorating.

Use books to show people the movies you like

I'm surprised by just how much of my furniture is some shade of pink, and contains no cephalopod prints. Get your head in the game, Norah.

What I'm wearing:

Skin: -Glam Affair- Brandi - Frost 05

Hair: Magika - Meadow

Eyes: [Buzz] Mysteria - Ice

Eyeliner: NOX. Electric Liner Black

Eyebrows: [Buzz] Katie Brows - Tinted

Shirt: {mon tissu} Spade Blouse - Coral Cascade

Panties: .tsg. Sentofuku Lingerie 

Nails: Ama. Slink Nails - Pride 2014

Furniture:

Bed: flowey. daydream bed

Suitcase: {vespertine} machinarium suitcase - beetles

Chair: ohmai Pigpunzel Chair (no longer available)

Poster 1: floorplan. i love you frame - arabic

Poster 2: floorplan. summer frames - simple

Book 1: floorplan. handbook for the recently deceased (dollarbie!)

Book 2: floorplan. philosophy of time travel (dollarbie!)

Owl: {vespertine} fabric bird sleepy owl - teal (Rare gacha prize)

Chinese Food: {af} Chinese - group gift

Summer Mixtape: Track Three - Melt

Ignore the fact that my horn drips are defying physics

   I use the word "melt" pretty frequently, and most often in an metaphorical, rather than literal sense. Melting is what I do when I'm witness to something particularly sweet, when I'm told something that makes me terribly happy, or when someone compliments me so highly that it leaves me embarrassed. In short, melting is positive.

   I am not an outgoing person by any stretch of the imagination. I don't leave the house unless it is absolutely necessary. I can count the number of friends that I interact with physically on one hand, and not exhaust my resource of fingers. I don't require a great deal of human interaction, (in fact, too much of it is physically draining) but I am susceptible to bouts of deep loneliness. I like having friends, but I'm rubbish at making them. 

   That sad story in place, I recently joined Plurk. I have about as much trouble meeting people in second life as I do in my first, but Plurk's put me in contact with a whole host of fellow users, many of which are among the kindest, most creative, and most thoughtful people I've ever met. Contact occurs quickly enough it makes remembering that one is not alone incredibly simple. I hope it isn't presumptuous to say that I consider a number of my Plurk "friends" to be genuine friends, or at least acquaintances in the makings of friends.

   So, thank you all, for giving me something to melt over.

   I am a sucker for drippy/melting items and textures. Note to creators: if you make them, I will buy them.

Quick! Look at what I'm wearing before I melt!

Skin: -Glam Affair- Brandi - Frost 05

Hair: (fashionably dead) Shove It - Rainbow 8

Eyes: [Buzz] Mysteria - Ice

Eyeliner: NOX. Lash Liner Black

Eyebrows: [Buzz] Katie Brows - Tinted

Blush: NOX. Ombre Blush - Watermelon

Horns: [VN] Melt Horns (I'm pretty sure this was a DarkStyle fair exclusive)

Collar: Aesthetica DripDrip - Black

Sweater: [VN] Melt Sweatshirt Dress - Mint (Again, Darkstyle fair exclusive)

Shorts: (NO) Booty Shorts - Green

Tattoo: La Malvada Mujer The Time is Now

Stockings: Clemmm Oil Owl Thigh Highs - 100%

Boots: [Gos] Triumph Boots - Black

Poses:

All from Clemmm:

Ado, Aft, S o n n y variant 3, Bored, Jade, Blue Porchers 3

Taken at Aesthetica

Summer Mixtape: Track Two - Lacquered Blade of the Saffron Traders

The Kind of Girl who Kills People for a Living

   I willingly admit that I've gotten into something of a cutesy rut in SL. I mean, just looking at what I had planned as my second track for the mixtape revealed a certain homogeneity. So, gentle reader, indulge me in something a bit more acerbic. 

   I am not a very tough person, nor do I have any heart for most manners of aggression. I try my best to have a biting wit, but I think that I value being "nice" far too highly. We all live vicariously through our avatars, so I think I don't have much of an excuse for being so sweet all the time.

   The idea of "dangerous woman" isn't too hard to communicate, I find. It can be all in a sidelong glance, or a certain flick of an eyebrow. However, it is all too easy to have dangerous woman become femme fatale, which I, more than anything, wanted to avoid. The femme fatale trope is a dangerous one, one that I tried to cling to, as a way of escaping the cult of the 'good girl', but which is ultimately another way of minimizing women. 

   So, did I manage to seem badass enough?

Valar Morghulis

I have clothed myself in:

Skin: -Glam Affair- Amberly - Petal Clean

Hair: TRUTH Yelena

Eyes: IKON Ascension - Evening

Eyeliner 1: -Glam Affair- Romy - Dark 06

Eyeliner 2: NOX. Lash Liner Black

Lips: NOX. Drama Lips - Overcast

Shirt: Apsara Chandramuhki Choli - Blue

Drape: Apsara Chandramuhki Dupatta - Cream

Pants: GizzA Mandy Pants - Waves

Shoulder Armour: The Forge Elise Pauldron - Silver/Gold (gacha)

Hand Ornaments: .aisling. Lady of Highgarden hands - Gold (gacha)

Poses: *BOOM*/Miseria Dueling Poses

Taken at Tableau

Summer Mixtape: Track One - Inari

Welcome to the Next Door to Clever Summer Mixtape! Outside of the computer, I've decided to make a serious effort to eradicate old patterns that are stale or destructive. As such, I want to try my best to publish a variety of looks on this blog. So I've put this challenge to myself: sixteen unique posts, before the summer is over, with a distinct and separate aesthetic to each. 

Track One's inspiration is the Japanese kami of foxes, fertility, rice, sake, and worldly success: Inari Okami, as well as Utilizator's beautiful new mesh avatar: Kemono. The slim build of the body resembles how I draw women's bodies, and is nothing short of breathtaking. The tail is animated, and the body is controlled through an easy-to-use HUD. I really suggest giving the wikipedia page I linked above, Inari is a fascinating deity. The fact that there exists no real consensus on Inari being female, male, agender, or even being a single deity. I chose the female interpretation, mostly because I am too lazy to make a male avatar, but also the sheer beauty of this piece, as well as a long-standing love of the Japanese fox-wife tales (in which a fox will take on the form of a woman, marry a man, and occasionally be forced by their species gap or supernatural reasons, be forced to part from him. They're very sad and dramatic, and I ate them up as a girl. Neil Gaiman did a standalone Sandman comic about one of these stories, and I love it to death.) Inari's messengers are white foxes, so I chose to make Inari herself white and vulpine. 

I have never had a furry avatar, and, make no mistake, the Kemono is intended as such. It offers human feet, but the fluffy fox tail, perky ears, and feline facial features of the (included, but not worn) mesh head leave no doubt as to the intent of the creator. I've honestly had a difficult time reconciling this with myself. I don't know how comfortable I feel being considered a member of the furry community by people who don't know me. I understand just how incredibly shallow this is, and have no idea how to reconcile this. I've found a human skin mod for the avatar, but I also bought a fox one. I am a complicated lady, with a number of identity issues, eventually leading to an utter lack of conclusion.

Looking forward to showing you guys the next fifteen tracks! (and also looking forward to thinking of them)

Inari is Depicted Wearing:
Skin: -Glam Affair- Brandi - Frost 02
Hair: TRUTH Dove
Eyes: [UMEBOSHI] Spirited Eyes - Malt (group gift)
Eyeliner: [Buzzeri] Royale Liner
Lips: [Buzzeri] Lip Balm - Obsidian
Cheek Lines: +Nuuna+ Triip (tinted)
Spots: =BFI// Alien Skin Tattoos : Spots (tinted)
Body, Tail, Ears, Boots: <UTILIZATOR> Kemono 
Kimono: -pixicat- Oriental Kimono - Koi (June Arcade)
Foxes: {aii} Familiar Spirit Inari Siblings (Ultra Rare Gacha Prize)
Sake Bottle: TC. Antique Japanese Sake Bottle

Pose: dfo! [brave] - war was easier than daughters

Taken at Nouveau

Where Sadists Prosper

"This... was the straightforward solution to the greatest mystery of all: Why is the world so unfair? Why all that savage economic injustice, those brutal wars, the everyday corporate cruelty? The answer: psychopaths."

-Jon Ronson, The Psychopath Test

"Psychopath? Me?"

   My friend Sian Pearl has been incredibly busy lately with a new and ambitious undertaking. In that post, she has detailed her aims in a far more eloquent manner than I can ever muster, so I implore you to read it. (Fun fact: that memo at the beginning of the post is something I said as a joke.) 

  Sian is attempting to put together a roleplay venue that, to my very novice eyes, seems entirely unique. As opposed to the regular RP sims, the BaC® Conflict Management Centre™ doesn't ask for you to create a character that fits in a defined world, commit to a particular genre, or attach a certain HUD. It is a space for your pre-existing characters to meet in a futuristic corporate space, and attempt to solve their conflicts (in a manner that openly invites these peace talks to fail). Again, Sian is far better at explaining this than I am.

Norah Sells Out

   To illustrate that I am making this post as a genuine expression of my own thoughts, and not a hollow shilling out of a friend's work--as appropriate to the subject matter as it would be-- I'm going to talk about my experience at the centre. Sian's blog mentioned that the place is static, and has no story, but I think that I insisted on playing a character that suited the world she had just built.

   This was the first time I had played a character in SL that had any amount of power in her world, as well as my first ostensibly "evil" character. I have a suspicion that these two facts enabled one another.
   We all know numerous adages about the corruptive nature of power, many of us know of the Stanford Prison Experiments, and I know that at least I try to believe that I am a more empathetic person than those that perpetrate abuses from positions of power. However, when I had that power, I pulled out one of Sian's eyelashes. Who's to say that I'm that far from a psychopathic CEO once I put on that mask?

  
 So, come on down to the BaC® Conflict Management Centre™! We have a mindwashed post-human, a business-casual sadist, and a spa!

Barthes Cybernetics Approved Apparel

Skin: -Glam Affair- Brandi - Frost 05

Hair: TRUTH Junia

Eyes: <<< negaposi >>> Elfin Eyes - Darkmatter, and [pIRA] Bineyes - Aqua 

Eyebrows: [Buzzeri] Katie Brows (tinted)

Eyeliner: [Buzzeri] Royale Liner

Eyebags: NOX. Eyebags

Sweater: ISON Work It Blazer - Black

Skirt: *BOOM*  Horizon Mini - Pitch (Past C88 item, no longer available)

Shoes: Ingenue Pickford Heels - Ebony (tinted)

Poses: flowey. lookbook eight (mirror) and walkin' four

What's in a Norah?

Listen, I've only had one post, but I can tell that you took one look at it and thought, 'I love this Norah thing. Where can I get one?' Well, new friend, I'm afraid to inform you that you cannot purchase a Norah, receive one as a gift, or even find one laying in a gutter. However, I myself am intimately familiar with the components of a Norah, and can give you tips on assembling your own Norah facsimile. We here at the Vespers Institute of kickassitude and taking no guff have carefully dissected what exactly makes up a Norah:

What's in a you? Do you break down into pieces as easily as a Norah?

What's on a Norah?

Skin: -Glam Affair- Brandi - Frost 05

Hair: TRUTH Yelena

Eyes: [Buzzeri] Mysteria Eyes - Ice

Eyebrows: [Buzzeri] Katie Brows (tinted)

Eyeliner: [Buzzeri] Royale Liner

Eyebags: NOX. Eyebags

Sweater: ISON Angora Sweater (midnight)

Shorts: {mon tissu} Hanalei Shorts (brown)

Shoes: Ingenue Esme Flats - Dove (past FLF item, tinted)

Pose: flowey. the base

Erasing the Anxiety of the Empty Page

Hello!

I'm Norah. This is my blog. It's nothing special yet, but I'm hoping that you'll help me build it into something enjoyable. 
I'm starting this blog to allow my use of Second Life to be creative, rather than purely consumptive. I'm nervous, I want you to like me, and I know that if I just give in to my critical impulses, you'll never hear a peep from me. So be patient, I'll bloom into a snarky flower in no time.