3rd Chapter Four

So it might be really unusual for me to forego my standard glasses and dark brown / black hair (except recently when I've been favouring blue hair thanks to having worked hard to bleach and dye my hair blue in real life), but I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to showcases the gifts offered for the 3rd anniversary of The Chapter Four!


Yes, you need to join their group in order to get the gifts, but the group is entirely free and there are just so many talented people there that it'd be a shame to miss out just because you don't have a group slot left.

Everything on my person at the moment outside of my actual avatar and skin is a gift from The Chapter Four-- even the pose (from Le Poppycock)! And there are plenty more item that I'm not showcasing because I've only decided to put one outfit together for this post and there are various items included that wouldn't really fit the Avatar 2.0 (such as skin applicators and numerous pairs of shoes that would require mesh socks compatible with slink that I've bought in the past and therefore isn't a part of the gifts group), and I have a tendency to delete accessories if I feel like I would never use them anyway. So these are just my favourites among the lot!

Shamera is wearing:

[atooly] the blair bow .rainbow.

Love - Blush hair in Ombre #3

[Z O O M] Gift Earrings

7mad;Ravens Foxy 8-bit Mouthie

Pure Poison - Sakura Heart Necklace

Luas Dream Crop Top

Valentina E - Bella Taffeta Bell Skirt

AZOURY - Bracelet Flowers

"mignon." -bunny gem ring
::C'est la vie !:: Alette purse

Kalopsia - Emily's Bracelets

(all available as gifts this month from The Chapter Four)

We're in the City of Wonder

Your mind is in Disturbia, it's like the darkness is the light.

Now, I know I said there'd be a few more fashion posts, but I was just enamoured with this place the moment I saw it and knew it had to be on this blog!

Welcome to Disturbia, a beautiful little sim rife with opportunities for photographers! It is an Adult sim, so I don't recommend bringing the little ones along on this ride, although the Adult rating is more for the horror aspect (as well as naked corpses sewn on the ground) than it having anything to do with sex.

From what I can tell, there's no game going on here (although it would definitely be amazingly cool if the creators were to make a game out of this place!), a Mystery seems to be a part of the title here. What happened? It looks like an old abandoned carnival ground, with some very questionable blood strewn over the place and green pollutants in the air. One side of the island is inhabited by killer clowns and broken down buildings and rides.

On the other side, however, is something else entirely-- reminding me a lot more of a video game come to life within the confines of Second Life. There are skeleton archers, mages, statues of Goddesses, and monsters that look like they've stepped straight out of MMO rather than a carnival.

And it works! Likely because the two areas, despite both being Disturbia, are on separate little islands connected by a thin wooden bridge. Unfortunately for me, I didn't feel like one outfit could cut both sides of the bridge, so I kept the MMO area unfiltered by my trapeze outfit. Although that just means I'll have to remember this place again when I want to actually do an MMO shoot (which I've been meaning to look into recently because I'm ever so slowly collecting pieces that would make up an elven archer on SL!).

Most of the photogenic areas on both little islands are nice and spaced out, though, so there's minimal lag despite the sheer amount of detail and textures on everything here. That make it a pretty ideal place for pictures if you're looking for something that's slightly horror, slightly video game-ish! It's not often that I find a place as beautiful as this that isn't made by either MadPea or Bryn Oh. Despite the crazy amount of horror sims on Second Life, there still aren't that many which will invest in the amount of graphics that an entire sim of detailed mesh will take. It's nice to see a place bringing SL out of the boxy prim era.

Shamera is wearing:

Astralia - Soraya Headpiece BLACK [ past free gift, now $250L for color HUD ]

Hair - [e] Other in White [ $75L, tinted blue ]

Goth1c0: The Dark Circus Trapezist [ past Twisted Hunt item ]

Utilizator Spandex Pants (short) [ $100L ]

S@bbia :: Suede Knee-high Boots [ past free LB, now $100L ]

Love, From Mattie

Sooooo~ happy fun times, but not a day after I made the previous post regarding child fashions, my computer decides to subject me to multiple blue screens of death! Luckily, my laptop isn't too opposed to Second Life, although it won't let me on for too long at my usual graphics (set to Ultra because I'm spoiled like that).

Thus, it'll be a short post with just Mattie today! I've found that while the Avatar 2.0 seems to suit the child avatars better than, say, the Kemono (which has issues with the body being a few inches in front of the clothes, but I'll get to that in another post), it still doesn't quite fit most of the children's very... very skinny fashions. What can I say? I certainly hadn't been that skinny as a child, so I appreciate this avatar much more with the flat chest if I'm going for sizes.

That being said, what Avatar 2.0 is good for, though... is all those in-between fashions!

For now, I'll just showcase a few things: CoCo, STYLE, Adorkable, and Vicarious Youth.

Top picture:
Dress: Free Group Gift @ CoCo Designs
Glasses: Free gift at 187 Boutique 

Left picture:
Shirt: Free gift from STYLE
Jeans: Free Group Luckyboard @ Adorkable
Ankle Boots: Free Group Gift @ CoCo Designs

Middle Picture:
Ribbon Mufflers: Free Group Gift from STYLE
Raincoat / Boots: Free Gift from Little Sparrow Boutique @ Big Dreams
Capris: Free Gift from Vicarious Youth

Right picture:
Dress: Free from Vicarious Youth
Shoes: Free Group Luckyboard @ Vicarious Youth

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
--

Not Free
--
 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)