Fantasy Faire: Exotic Worlds

I have to admit, I was not expecting Exotic Worlds. I forget sometimes that Fantasy can include Science Fiction, too. That the future, and that the wild wildernesses of possible other planets, would be included in the Fantasy Faire was both a delight and a surprise.


This world was amazing, though - robots mingling with primal fire women, combined with enormous mushrooms and runestones that glow. In the center was two amazing things, both difficult to capture in a static shot - one a labyrinth of land and water, circled by the runestones. The other, an enormous tree that I ended up photographing from multiple angles, but never quite capturing entirely.


The shops are all set up in tents around the sides, their braces also glowing faintly as if with some alien  power. Enormous mushrooms pop up  here and there, glowing and releasing sparks of light onto unsuspecting visitors. Here and there I was reminded of a book I read - Escape from Prism - which was about a world where the living things were based in silicon, not carbon, with the expected superiority in them that one finds in Science Fiction, where the idea is that we really could be doing things better.


One of the stores is filled with these adorable, breedable robots. I have to admit I sat and watched them moving around for a while - I doubt I'll indulge, but I adore the idea of breeding mechanical things. The little flowers they feed from (I assume) and the electrical tree center are also a charming combination of the organic and the mechanical. Little wind flowers make me remember the wind farms I once saw on a long drive, and the impish part of me wonders if we can make them solar powered, so they're more green.


Speaking of green, bizarre flowers - some of them green - lurk around the edges of the "human" areas of wooden boards and shops. It's a reminder of the feel of many Science Fiction books which focus on the cultural and environmental instead of quite so much of the science as the founders of that discipline. The feel of much of science fiction is of being under threat, of the common and usual having insidious effects on us, or of the danger and wonder of the unknown. This can take the mindset of either "our civilization is right" reinforcement of our situations, or as a reprise once again of the idea of a "noble savage" where some other culture has it right. The unspoken part of the latter is where we kill them off; the unspoken part is that this makes an "us" and a "them".


Here and there, the landscape is enlivened by floating islands of plants with flowers and gems dangling among the roots. I love the textures on the gems in particular, reminiscent of honeycomb yet glowing with internal lights. In the back, you can see the giant trees at the heart of the sim, guarding the labyrinth in water. There's also a cage there - like in all the other sims, people were "arrested" to raise money. The one here is particularly beautiful.



I mentioned in my last post that I'd recently been to the pose faire, picking up a few new sets from old favorite pose stores and also picking up the freebies from new stores, to try them out and maybe ifnd some new pose stores. Poses are a challenge to choose in many ways, at least for me, because it's hard to know what you already have, what is similar, what is different. My purchases, therefore, tended to be toward sets designed a stylistic ends - like sets meant to be worn with long hair - or clearly novel things - like this adorable, wearable circle of butterflies. I love how they're flying around at angles, which draws attention to the bracelets from Forsaken which I simply had to wear again while bouncing around this new sim.


I was amazed anew at the decorations put out by shops, dappling the landscape with wonder. These figurines (there is a second one - see all the pictures to see it) seem to be made up of lava, tilted up and curved wonderfully. I think the disturbing yet alluring part of this figure is how my brain registers the lava texture as both moving and hot, yet the form of the woman is clearly one which could not hold under science as I know it. It causes a cognitive dissonance which is really quite pleasing.


This is the inside of the cage you saw at a distance earlier - filled with glowing rainbow grasses and entirely impossible to escape without teleporting out. I adored it, from the soap bubble energy field around it, to the crunch of flowers under my feet as I vainly tried to escape.The outfit I'm wearing, by the way, is the only one you'll see that I didn't buy at the Faire. It's from the store Soleil, and the combination of a rainbow and sunshine makes me incredibly happy. I'd love a second one combining a rainbow and storm clouds; I think the effect would be stunning.


My favorite thing, though, had to be a reprise of the lilies form the Sea of Mer I began at. This time on the surface, these lotuses make me deeply, deeply happy. I love the glowing centers, and how the light shapes the colors into a perfect fade. The Lotus is a Sacred Flower in Hinduism, sat upon by gods, and looking at it here I get the same sort of wonder I did the first time I saw one in the flesh.

( More pictures here - only until the end of today left! )

Credits:

Eyes: Tacky Soul, Pride
Skin: Adam n Eve, Astrelle Fae (light brows) with Hearts Eye Tattoo
Hair: Calico Ingmann Creations, Calico - Light Hyasynth Blue
Wings: Illusions, Chibi Angel Wings
Dress: Soleil, After the storm
Bracelets: Forsaken, Bullet with Butterfly Wings
Shoes: Sanu, Hootie Flats

Location: Exotic Worlds
Light Settings: AnaLu Studio 1
Water Settings: [TOR] Meridian verde

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping only