I love the fact you can fly in second life. Besides nosing around what's in the sky, it lets you bypass all kinds of otherwise annoying things. Like giant walls and lengthy sim crossings. And often times you find things up above and hidden in - like the forest in the middle of Arbus.
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3 (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished) (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde (Wings) Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Wings - tinted brown (Dress) Salt, Black and Tan Cocktail Dress (Shoes) Baby Monkey, Simone - Nude (Pose) p4p, this is NOT comfortable
There's also a huge pavilion, with it's roof decorations mimicked on top of the buildings all around. The only hitch was - lots of phantom! I ended up floating above things, frantically angling my camera to try to make it look reasonable, cursing my lack of build perms.
The clothing is gorgeous, though. Fairy-like and floaty, or elegant, the style seemed to be that of the faerie type, whether she be elegant, flirty, or unused to human norms of wearing clothing. The theme fit with the fields of flowers around the stores, and the graceful artwork on the walls of each store - look for the variety there, because there's lots to find!
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3 (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished) (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde (Wings) Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Wings - tinted brown (Hair Flower) Mystic Sky, Purple Hibiscus (Dress) Ivalde, Demi Skyblue Chic Limited (Shoes) Baby Monkey, Simone - Nude (Pose) HelaMiyo, Gown 2
Though, if there's one thing that trying on things from Arbus has show me, it's that I lean heavily toward things that show off my tits. Not other parts of my body - maybe a little leg, very little belly (except for that red outfit I couldn't resist - see below), but tits - oh yeah, there they are.
This is made all the more funny by how often people mistake me for a child avatar due to my height. It's difficult to tell from most of my pictures, I'm sure, but I come up to the chest of the average other avatar - male or female - and the waist of tall avatars.
Yes, this has led to the making of some rather obvious jokes.
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3 (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished) (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde (Wings) Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Wings - tinted black (Dress) Angelwing, Julietta Dress - Cornflower Blue (Shoes) G Field, Bow Strap Shoes "Kate" - black (Pose) Striking Poses, Camera Candy 4
Height, and the role of child-like avatars in Second Life are fraught matters - oddly, even more fraught than offline. Offline children are expected, and there are means to at least attempt to keep them out of adult areas. A lot of those attempts to shield children from things like sex seem odd to me, though. I absorbed them much like any US citizen might, but once I started studying history, and other cultures, it became obvious that this elevation of childhood to a time of peace and innocence is really quite modern (think Victorian), and requires a certain amount of ignorance to our own lives to accomplish.
My childhood was not a time of pure peace and innocence. I was a wild, emotional creature and the memory of my childhood is more painted in impressionistic emotions than anything more concrete and set in pastels. Even now, my life and mind are brilliant flashes of color held apart by thick walls, like stained glass writ large and in three dimensions.
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3 (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished) (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde
(Hairpiece) Evie's Closet, Secret Garden Wreath (Fan) Solange, Coquette Feathered Fan - Black (Jewelry) Eclectica, Spring Pearls (Dress) Evie's Closet, Amarie's Bower (Shoes) Baby Monkey, Simone - Nude (Pose) Pffiou!, For the Stars
Adults, I think, like to fantasize about the positive, wonderful aspects of their childhood, forgetting the first betrayal, the first death, the first passionate love. This protection of children is thus less about those children (as shown by how disastrous some of the choices can be - insulating children from choice and knowledge simply makes adults who know nothing and cannot chose) and more about adults trying to make and preserve something pure and idealistic within themselves.
It is this I see a lot of child avatars embracing - a time of strong emotions and simple beliefs, when there were those who protected you. Some adults never had that as a child, and so are experiencing it for the first time. Others have lives of darkness, and so childhood may be a valuable escape - especially an idealized childhood of purity and innocence.
Second Life is a place where what appears to be and what is are rarely the same. Take the picture below, for example - I couldn't actually stand on the roof - it was phantom - but doesn't it look like I am? In this way humans become children, fairies, wolves, and more attractive humans.
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3 (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished) (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde (Wings) Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Wings - tinted black (Necklace) Ear Candy, Surfer Necklace with Wave (Dress) Solange, Coquette Gown - Green (Shoes) Baby Monkey, Simone - Nude (Pose) doll., Selene 03
One of the things that I think is often forgotten on the internet, is that when people create whatever they want most - the variety will be immense. Some people desire playing at romance, others desire eroticism, others connecting with others. There are those who seek knowledge, who seek insight, who seek peace, who seek purity. Sometimes these work at cross purposes - those who sexually solicit children, for example, or those whose eroticism is expressed as children seeking sex (one of the few things which is against the rules on second life).
I am, perhaps, too much of a therapist and a post-modernist to set standards. In the absence of people being hurt, I'm more curious about why we express ourselves the way we do, what do we get out of repeating patterns in multiple places, and what can we learn in places where the reality setting is different than in our analog existence. Last night, feeling blue and sick and cranky, I built myself a giant ball pit on a sandbox. I broke physics. I brought in friends and stuck them inside of giant balls, before flinging them wildly around this morning. I awake to the headache of a sandbox enthusiast - a pile of balls returned to my lost and found when the six hour limit clicked over in the sandbox I played in.
Far more enjoyable than a hangover.
(Skin) MiaSnow, Rainbow Tan 3 (Eyes) Tacky Star, Pride (Ears) Illusions, Mystic Ear - Fairy (tarnished) (Hair) Magika, Dharma - Golden Blonde (Wings) Fancy Fairy, Azarelle Wings - tinted red (Diadem) Fantasia, Dhalia Diadem (Dress) Earth & Sky, Moonlight Red (Shoes) Baby Monkey, Simone - Nude (Pose) Adore and Abhor, Ides de Mars
( More pictures here. )
Across all Pictures Credits:
Location: Fashion For Life - Arbus: Sponsered by Evie's Closet
Light Settings: Alchemy Immortalis, Fog Lifting
Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
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