Monday, June 23, 2014

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

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

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

Monday, June 16, 2014

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

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

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