20L Tuesday Fall Fete: Teal Temptress

This is another set of shots at the Open Studio Project, this time in the Subway Set - which includes a cute little shopping area and a few vehicles for posing on! I'm wearing a variety of things from the 25$L Tuesday Fall Fete, a one week event including hunts, special events, and a whole slew of things either significantly discounted or for only 25$L! The fascinator, from On A Lark (charmingly fringed and with a really cute veil), is made to match one of her outfits, but I found it matched this adorable rigged mesh dress and warmers from For F's Sake! Isn't that the cutest store name ever? It's a very pear-shaped mesh with a cute theme overall; the only flaw I could see is that the dress is set to fullbright and can't be edited to change it, but in most lights that won't matter; it just doesn't take shadows in the same way. The zipper up the front is, indeed, what you think it is; there's a second version of the dress which ...shows off all of the goods, so to speak. Kept zipped and with the included undies, though, it covers enough for the persnickitiest of sims. I capped off the outfit with adorable feet from N@N@, with color changing toenails and a really cute design. They come with coin anklets that fit over the feet and hook around the second toe, not shown here.

*Edited 10/25/2012: The designer from For F's Sake (sorry about the name and addy mixup!) dropped me a line to let me know the dress was fullbright accidentally, and she's fixed all versions of it; now that is awesome customer service!

This is the kind of outfit which would attract comment most places, but which is positively prudish in Second Life, a contrast I find alternatively charming and maddening. One of the interesting things about the tendency toward nearly nonexistent outfits in Second Life is that they lose a lot of their cache. On the positive side, this means that by and large one can wear as little as one wants with very few ill effects - something not often found for women in general in the world. The downside is that being alluring, even with traditional pin-up poses, becomes increasingly a challenge because the full monty is a teleport away. Being sexual, and sexy, can be a mixed blessing and brings with it a lot of assumptions.

At the same time, a world where a woman must be sexy in order to get any attention is not a world I'm particularly fond of - I have mentioned before the acquaintance who literally said he wouldn't bother paying any attention to me because I wore clothing which covered more than 50% of my body, because I wasn't attractive to him in particular. Just a small glimpse into the differing goals of men and women when interacting, the different agendas, how those effect how everyone views everyone else... I've been dwelling a lot of these in connection with this post at Metafilter, where I ended up referring back to this blog to give examples of the sort of treatment women receive at the hands of men not interested in me, but rather in what they think they can get from me. There are a million different voices on this topic, and the ones related to it, but one which struck me recently was from a woman who spent a while cashing in on the cache of being attractive enough, "Beauty is powerful because it is pleasing. Real power means not having to please."

( More pictures here. )

Credits: 

Skin: De La Soul, Aestali - Cream Rose
Eyes: De La Soul, RooMee Eyes - Rainbow
Ears: Illusion, Seelie Ears
Hair: elikatira, Flattery
Hat: On A Lark, Mysterious Fascinator
Eyelashes 1: SLink, Eyelashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 04-A
Eyeshadow 1: Virtual Insanity, Fairy - Sea
Eyeshadow 2: Virtual Insanity, Paintbrush 16
Lipstick: Mock, Bella Vetro Gloss - Apple Blossom
Wings: Fancy Fairy, Azarelle
Outfit: For F's Sake, Eve Teal
Feet: N@n@, Bare Feet

Poses: Glitterati

Location: Open Studio Project: Subway
Light Settings: Places Betham
Water Settings: Mirror Water

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping, only