Genre: Dark Summoner

Genre's theme is the Dark Arts this round, and the inspiration covers a lot of ground - from traditional practices of Tarot and Demonology to popular fiction. It also gave me a chance to get in touch with shadow!Deo, who lurks in the places least seen and comes out... well, best to leave those considerations unspoken. My face is made up of a combination of things; layered underneath is the base tattoo from Spyralle, meant to go with a variety of forehead decorations - foreheads were popular this month! It's a webwork design you'll see more of in future posts, but I liked the effect of the lacy edges under my mask, an incredible creation from Eclectica. It's formed and textured like leather, ridged and edged very realistically with simple, smooth curling horns coming from the temples. I love the texturing on this in particular, from the gleam of the eyes to how each section captures the light. It looks sharp and wild, yet still retains it's mask-like quality, which I really appreciate. My jewelry is also from Eclectica, but isn't a release at Genre, and after this round of Genre is over, the mask will join the rest of Eclectica's creations at her store.

My dress is from Wimey, and manages to somehow be both adorable and menacing - a Wimey special, in my experience. I am a sucker for outfits with snakes on them, and this one does not disappoint - with a python lovingly hugging waist and breast both. The snake part is textured with a dappled metallic effect, like beaten metal, while the corset top and skirt both have the heavy, thick quality of leather. I particularly like the embossed pattern on the bodice and how the bottom v of the bodice is more heavily creased, as if the wearer has sat a lot in it. The effect is a wearable garment, even though it's all leather. I added on some flash nails from Vengeful Threads, a field of red trees on a black background - certainly appropriate for the overall look and very slick. My shoes, in contrast, look like they were decoupaged from old Tarot cards - a fun and misty effect from Sense-able Fashions. The shoe shape itself is simple, a perfect base for the overlaying of brightly colored cards to really be shown at their best.

The final touch to my demonic fashion is a curse from BluPrintz - swirling flames which can be connected by a series of particles to form stars of different numbers of points - from three to twelve. The options for colors are immense - there is a way to change both colors of the flames as well as the color of the links; I went with a dull, bloody red for the star, and left the points as bright orange and red flames. In addition to flames swirling behind, there is a second set included which swirls around the body perpendicular to it - rather like the magical effects of anime, or what happened last week when I summoned that... oh, well... nevermind. It's not important.It's definitely critical to make it to Genre before ...whatever happened last week catches up with us, though - remember, salt and circles, and try to make sure what you summon isn't on the same side of the barrier as you are.

Genre: Rhapsody in Blue

This month's Genre is Celebratory, a Third Anniversary Party filled with shine and glamor and edged on all sides with a pretty ribbon of silly. As events go, it's one of the longer ones and inspires a cavalcade of unusual clothing and accessories. That sheer variety is on display all over this month's event - clothing crossing several ages, accessories for many different types of avatars, and some wonderful celebratory items to decorate homes and accentuate parties. Nowhere is this more obvious than this dress from Blue Blood, a fluffy confection that combines an elegant Mandarin collar with puffed lantern sleeves and bodice reminiscent of Fifties' cocktail dresses. It transitions smoothly into the wide, ruffled skirt, and the combination of the catch along the collar and the dividing line down the center of the dress adds interest. It comes with a fatpack of colors divided into light and dark, twelve options in all, and each of them combine two tones of color - a brighter, shiny half, and a slightly dull, leatheresque half. Clever use of materials adds to the sense of texture and shine on the dress, making the tentacles seem embossed into the surface as well as making each half seem like a different type of surface. In addition to my eternal favorite, tentacles, there is also a skyline version of the dress which you can see me wearing in my DDR post.

Goth1c0 also blessed us with colorful fatpacks, offering up a wide variety of textures on these charming zippered heels with the platform base. Unlike a lot of fatpacks, where the different textures are color variations on a theme, these boots include this fun, blue embossed pattern, animal print, a fun spiderweb, and even some skulls and crossed bones - ten options in all - and four metal colors. The shapes of the openings are wonderfully fun, each zipper hanging free off to the side. I love the silver detailing along the base and the pipe-shaped heel with it's cute, rounded center. One of the things I love about the SLink high feet is that they offer up options for cut-out, boot style heels that show off the smooth foot beneath. The style of shoe also let me show off my fantastic nails to good effect - another Genre offering, this time from Sense-able Fashion. I chose one of the puzzle nails, an interlocking pattern of blues which seemed made for this overall look. There are two other sets, all of them brightly colored and fun, a valuable way to bring your celebrations all the way to your fingertips. And just in case you want to celebrate down to your marrow, The Stringer Mausoleum made an amazing set of starburst eyes in a variety of shades - each one eerie and pale, and yet somehow compelling. There is a wearable demo in gray in addition to the purchasable colors, and each comes with such incredible options - petite eyes, mesh eyes, legacy eyes, and a system layer - that even the pickiest eyeophile would be pleased.

Genres - Trivial and Critical

The Genre Event always gets me thinking about genres; which ones I like and which I struggled with, which seem clear and which become confusing, my knee-jerk and longer term responses to people who can't seem to identify a genre and so put forth something more in line with their usual output than the theme of the event. In general terms, I like fantasy, I like science fiction, I like mysteries - especially cosy mysteries, but I dislike horror unless it's psychological suspense and even then I'm watching it during the day. I like romances but I'm picky, anything that ends up down Gender Essentialist Blvd will raise my ire. I like Rock & Roll and Pop, but not the sexist  bits and at inopportune times I'm prone to pointing out we stole most of it from Black people. I love philosophy, but I'm a post-modernist who became so not because of classes but because I thought it made the most sense, and then I met other post-modernists and became very sad; see also Libertarianism (though now I'm really a progressive socialist).

I know it may seem like political things don't fit under "genre", but if you really think about it, a genre is really just a collection of similar characteristics with which something or someone is identified; we focus on it in entertainment media, but sports varieties are really genres, and sports geeks are as geeky as Dr. Who geeks. The same with fashion; while everyone wears clothing, there are distinct stylistic genres people can become attached to, like my attraction to Renaissance-y  and Lolita style fashions. These days, it seems like the internet is ever more ready to divide us by our genres, sending the furry Lolitas one way and the sporty country lovers the other. I like the frisson when I run across something I might normally not like - like Westerns, I am neither a neutral nor a Country kind of girl - in such a way that I find things I can appreciate as a part of it. I'm wary of the ways in which the internet molds my world so it reflects back to me what I like - only more so. I want to see the world, not my own reflection.

All of the major features of my look come from the Genre Event, which has the theme of "Westerns." The pickings were much slimmer than for other themes, but a lot of what was released was very high quality. This dress from The Muses is a gorgeous Westerns style dress with an amazing belt and some truly gorgeous textures. The shape is amazing and nearly perfect - I just wish the inside of the sleeves had been capped so that I could more easily photograph straight down them; the immediate inside is textured, but a few inches beyond it becomes invisible, which can be a challenge to work around. I still adore this dress, though - the ruffles down the front (several different colored shirts are available, all of them gorgeous), the lace like pattern on the skirt, the soft cuffs and neckline - from stem to stern it is unique and a joy. My jewelry is something I actually own a version of offline - Squash Blossom jewelry from Sense-able Fashions. I have a set much more heavily festooned with turquoise, but the shape of the blossom is the same, and I particularly appreciated that Sense-able Fashions included a little note about the origin of the necklace.

"The Navajo (Dine) create beautiful jewelry of Silver and semi-precious stone...The Naja (crescent shape) came to the Americas via the earliest Spanish invaders. The crescent shape with its horns turned down was considered a means to ward off the 'evil eye'.  The 'blossoms' were based off pomegranate, another symbol from the invaders, incorporated by Native American Artisans."

 My shoes are a really fun release from Bliensen + MaiTai which I simply had to have when I saw them. The fringe is lovely, and the little beads just make it that much more cool. I could totally see my Country Marm strutting around in these... though the heels are probably a little high. The rest of my look is not from the Genre Event; the hair flower from Lode is being released at L'Accessories, and is a fun take on big flowers on your head. The ombre texturing is lovely, and I really like the ribbon touch down one side. My hair from Wasabi Pills is available at the Arcade Gatcha event and is a lot of fun; when I put it on, I thought the simplicity of the formality really fit the genre of Westerns, and this character of a prim lady with a wild side particularly well. I briefly considered pulling my poses form yet another event going on this month, but at the last minute swerved and landed neatly into Olive Juice's capable hands. While her store is largely closed, it does maintain an in-world presence, and hopefully when the creator has more time she'll be back to grace us with more of her fun and quirky poses.

( More pictures here. )

Credits: 

Skin: De La Soul, Candace Creamer
Hair: Wasabi Pills, Melissa (Arcade)
Hair Flower: Lode, Viora (L'Accessories)
Ears: Illusions, Seelie Ears
Eyes: De La Soul, Rainbow
Eyelashes 1: SLink, Mesh Lashes
Eyelashes 2: Flugeln Brise, 05-A
Wings: Deviance, Sidhe Wings
Hands: SLink, Rigged Mesh Hands
Nails: SLink, Default Nails
Jewelry: Sense-able Fashions, Squash Blossom Set (Genre)
Dress: The Muses, Susanna (Genre)
Shoes: Bliensen + MaiTai, Calamity Jane (Genre)

Poses: Olive Juice

Location: The Bayou
Light Settings: Nacon's Afternoon
Water Settings: Glassy

Photographed by Deoridhe Quandry
Post processing: Cropping, only