The Young and the Bold

From left to right: Zerou (5'0), Shams (5'6), and Mattie (5'2)

 So I feel a little awful for leaving this blog unattended for so long-- but at the very least I can say that I'm still on Second Life! In fact, I've spent the past few months clearing out my inventory (and for anyone who's been on Second Life for years, they'd know how hard that is to do!), brings the ridiculous number I see when I sign on to something far more manageable. That means going back and clearing everything non-mesh from my clothing folder (should I have done that years ago, I suppose) and then slowly (I'm still doing this) going through all my mesh items and then deleting all the sizes that I don't need.

I've discovered that I have far too many clothes for me to ever wear in the course of a whole year. Why do I keep so many things? Not to mention, the majority of it is all freebies and hunt items, so they don't always look the very best or fit my style... which is to say, a style that's a lot more childish than the majority of SL's runway fashions. I tend to like things I would actually wear in real life, and thus the more revealing clothes are out.

So, with the help of my old alts (which I've recently dusted off and also spent a good amount of time clearing out all junk in their inventory), let's have the next few posts focus on a more modest fashion-- from kids to young adults, using Utilizator's mesh avatars (because why not? I've used the same avatar the entire time I've run this blog) and trying to fit the freebie lifestyle (mesh avatars themselves are expensive, so I'm not left with a lot after getting just the basics!) and different niches of items.

Let's get ready to ruuuumble~

Poses: gift @ the pose shop

Melissa

Just a head's up, in case anyone didn't know (and since this is a blog that features mesh avatars from Utilizator), the Melissa avatar is currently free as a Halloween(?) gift up at Annie May Heaven! Go grab this cutie for yourself~

Kemono Freebies

 

Something a little different this time! I've always done things for the Avatar 2.0, but now here's some freebies for the Kemono, since I have a little boy avatar using the Kemono with M3 Venus head. 

FREE group gifts from =^HARO^= (free to join) 
 Button Eyes || Fangs || Bloodied Finger || Bloodied Shirt 
Bubbles Pose: Free gift from Icons of Style 
Horns: Trick-o-Treat outfit Free at [GIFTS HOME] 
Photo taken at Night Crawl
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Not Free
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 Mesh Avatar: Kemono by Utilizator $900L
Mesh Head: M3 System Venus Head by Utilizator $500L
Skin: Tor Shade Skin Mod by =^HARO^= $300L
Hair: Unisex 32 from Dura in black $120L

Halloween around the corner!

So normally I have lots of posts of Halloween, and this year is no exception! The only thing is that I seem to have posted everything on other sites (tumblr, flickr), so I'm going to move them over-- expect a barrage!

What I'd also like to focus on is just how beautiful Second Life can be when people dedicate a little more time to it: I've had family sigh and tell me that they'd play Second Life if only the game was prettier... and I don't understand that sentiment at all. Sure, there's a great number of sims that seem to be stuck in the 2004-2007 era in terms of graphics, but that's actually not the majority of places I see. Most other areas are incredibly proud of how beautiful Second Life can be, and they show it!

 The pictures in this post were taken at a sim called The Trace, and yes it IS this beautiful there. I've even gif'ed the area to show that it really is as beautiful as it looks, and that it's the perfect place to go for some autumn relaxation and explorations!

Pumpkin Staff: Free group gift at COCO Designs
 Hat + Hair: Free Subscriber gift from Magika
 Morrow Gothic Dress: PAST free gift from Evie's Closet
 Hecate's Broom: Free at NeverWish
 Penta Harness: $1 Halloween gift at T&S
 OW leather boots: $1L from ATOMIC Marketplace

NOT FREE
 Pose: !bang group gift ($100L to join)
 WitchCraft Garters: PROMO $25L @ Apple May Designs (now $100L)
 
Mesh Avatar: Avatar 2.0 from Utilizator ($500L)
 Skin Mod: Ombre from !free (discontinued)
 Gloves/Socks: Utilizator ($100L each)

!gO!

 Since I promised a fashion post (2 posts ago), this one is going to be a little thing to talk about the free mesh clothing you can get at !gO! that they have lined up outside the stores ($1L per outfit), and a little bit just practicing my photography now that I've actually updated my Firestorm Viewer.

The sim that I practised taking these pictures on is HERE, and I'm sad to say that I haven't yet played through the game available (which does sound really cool, in a LOST sort of manner) mostly because I'm doing this (for some reason) at 2am in the morning, and a little because I was trying to take and then edit the pictures immediately... which didn't work out all that well when Firestorm and Photoshop both tried to compete for the most amount of RAM on my computer.

A reminder that: yes, I am still using the Avatar 2.0 body, and this cute turquoise summer outfits fits just about perfectly-- sparing an inch or two around the waist for the skirt (and thus I put on a bikini underneath).

I'll leave this post at just this outfit (there are plenty of other mesh outfits outside the !gO! store, but be aware that most of them will not fit as perfectly as this outfit, although thanks to the latest Avatar 2.0 updates most of those outfits will fit with a little bit of tweaking), as while the hair and sandals were both free, they're expired items (unless you collected free things from the Hair Faire this year and just haven't opened all the boxes, this is one of the hairs we got!) and I'll try to do a few more outfits in my next post!

UNIA

 As everyone probably already knows, this post has been long overdue. UNIA is the latest game by MadPea, and MadPea is one of the greatest game/content creators on Second Life. Now I've been following the development of this game for well over a year before it's release (I think?), or at the very least, ever since they first announced it in their group. The original disclaimer is that this would be the biggest thing they've every done, and... well, now that I've finally found the time to go through it, they weren't wrong!

I remember going through the original Devil's Labyrinth back in the days when I was still doing Hogwarts roleplay, and figuring out their Firefly interactive story. MadPea did escape rooms and glorious sims, and lately they've been doing-- well, hunts with stories behind them. I like stories, I like hunts... win/win, right?

But I think it wasn't until I was running through UNIA that I realised just how much I missed something purely... story. While the hunts were always fantastic and MadPea did a spectacular job creating sims and HUDs that allowed for more immersive game-play, there was just something about hunting in outside stores that tears you away from the game. Of course there were some great stores that actually redecorated just to suit the hunt! And wow, those were the stores that really got my approval, but there's something that detracts when you see a store that's clearly not in the storyline but has been written into the storyline because of the hunt and then also realise that there are other people in the store actually trying to shop or do something else that's not in the same mindset as you... well.

Let's just say: UNIA gets rid of all that. It is still a hunting game. You still have to search for items, and a lot of times those items will be hard to find. But everything is moved so that when you play UNIA, you will only see other people who play UNIA. You are not traversing outside stores, but rather, the outside stores have come to the UNIA sim to sell their goods, tucked away in a corner where it doesn't interfere with the storyline.

Now the pictures that I have up will have a bit of spoilers to UNIA, but since I want to gush a little about how amazing it is, the post itself will have slight spoilers for UNIA.

 MadPea has done a fantastic job of giving away absolutely nothing of this game in advance, so when I first started playing, I honestly had no clue as to what I was supposed to do. Wander around a desert sim looking for things while wearing a HUD with my vital signs on it? And yes, just so you know: you can die in this game. I'd be very surprised if anyone makes it through without dying once, because... well, I know I died a few times entirely from curiosity!

 The story goes that your car breaks down in the middle of the desert right next to the town of Molimo, a tiny place with missing persons posters all over. In fact, speaking with the residents will have a man searching for his wife and a police officer who warns you to stay safe because Molimo is rather famous for disappearances. I didn't know what to do, so I went around a lot talking to people until I was eventually 'kidnapped'.

I say 'kidnapped' because I honestly only heard some noises behind me, started running, and then blacked out to find myself awake again in a farm that looked nowhere close to Molimo! In fact, the entire area is surrounded by an energy shield so that's where the puzzles truly start. How do you get out??

UNIA is a survival game, and that means there are things in this game out to kill you and you can choose either to run away or fight back. Now, as someone who could only afford the Bronze Pass of the game (which is the basic pass to play and costs 400L, as opposed to the Gold Pass which is 1000L and will provide you will amazing weapons for you to defend yourself with), my only real choice was to run away since I attempted to fight back once and... well, if it helps, I died slightly after I managed to kill the monster.

Expect intrigue! Horror! Jump scares! And honestly, several moments when you feel like you need to start stabbing at your monitor because I for one could not figure out for the life of me how to solve two of the puzzles without some helpful clues from people in the chat. (If anyone wants to know, it was the cow and centipede ones.)

But yes! Definitely, definitely, take some time out of your day to play UNIA. It is beautiful, it is daring, and as my SO has asked, "Why don't they just make a real game out of it and put it up on Steam to make more money?" (Trust me, that's a real compliment coming from him.)

"Why does it all have to be so creepy?!"

...Okay, so the title comes directly from my roommate, who gave me to teleport over to Origami because she knows I like pretty places... and apparently, most of those pretty places are extremely creepy as well!

The sim is a scenery mall filled with handfuls of tiny stores with a Japanese slanted theme, most of them with a slight horror element. Not too much, though! Just... a store that sells bleeding dolls, or kimonos (but the advert will feature a headless mannequin with a large flower for a head to display it), or masks. 

What I didn't notice while panning around and taking pictures (I go around far faster than my computer can load areas) is that it's soon to host the summer festival come July! I'm going to guess it's going to be in a fantastically creepy theme (and I definitely have to start looking at kimonos and accessories to put together for the festival soon...) which is something I desperately miss throughout the year... well, except during October, when all the sims decide that being creepy and scary is in the 'in' thing due to Halloween (guys, guys, creepy is always 'in').

So I'll do a proper post about this place once the festival comes along (wow, it really is going to be summer soon! Time really flies... even the summer night market is already open...), but for now enjoy the landmark because I know that the creepy/cute event only comes around once a year and what's better than having a few permanent destinations when you're feeling the urge to scare a roommate?

The next entry will actually be a fashion update, I promise! (Or perhaps the new Attack on Titan sim that Utilizator has created...? I still have to visit that!)