Genre: Queen of the Rain

We're at the halfway point for Genre and I'm showing off Vengeful Threads' gorgeous gown with an incredibly plunging neckline. It's available in six different color options (changeable via a HUD) and has amazing shape and movement. The addition of flexy floofs for the skirt is a fun touch and works well with the black-and-color design. I don't normally like necklines that are too low, but I love the curve of this along with the relatively sedate styling otherwise which really elevates it into elegant evening wear with an edge. You can also pick it up for astonishingly little at Genre for the next couple of weeks - so hurry by!

Genre: Curb-Stomping Kawaii

The Military has rolled into Genre-town, and the results are... mixed. There's lot of camouflage in some very interesting places, and by far one of the most interesting is this combination of Lolita and combat colors. It's lover-cut than the typical Lolita, but pleasingly fluffy with the rough edges and rounded profile of classic Curious Kitties. It's fitmesh, so trying a demo first is a good idea, and in addition to the dark green I'm showing here it comes in water blue, sand tan, and urban gray. The skirt is more tutu than flowing layers of petticoat, and it's a fun shape to mix and match with tights or pants. There are also some very nice buckly belts around the waist, setting this apart from other Lolita styles. It comes with matching boots (not shown) making it a cohesive look. It was a lot of fun to take two very different things and try to combine them, and I think I managed admirably!

The rich, jungle color was an easy match with a variety of accessories - for example these amazing bracelets from Tanoshi, which also come in a bunch of other shades - like red, brown, teal, and navy. They have heavy rifle-sized bullets pinned around the edges with enormous grommets, and half of them come with lace in addition! They match my shiny star nails to perfection! Those come from Vengeful Threads and are enormously fun. Purple, pink, the green I'm showing, blue, and red are all options, each with silvery stars and bits of camo laid into them. I rounded out my look with two non-Genre offerings. The first are these awesome, flirty stompy boots from Dilly Dolls which seem simply made for combining steel toes and ruffles. They come in solid colors, but thankfully they are editable and one can select individual faces, so I was able to add dark and bright green to various surfaces and make it fit in better with the rest of my look - I adore modifiable clothes for so many reasons, but this level of individualization is a big part of it.

In contrast, the gray matches the bullets of my bracelets and the spines on my headband. That headband comes with the matching hair from Wasabi Pills with a fun single shoulder flow. I'm wearing it in mottled cool shades and gray to carry the color scheme further; I didn't want to go to warm and unsettle the effect. Look at how seamlessly the hair curls over one of my ears - and Wasabi Pills has moved more and more towards individual strands of curling hair, which make them really stand out. The final touch is my necklace, a heavy round shape like dog-tags but a little more sinister - this is one of my favorite necklaces from Eclectica, an octopus hugging a stone. I love every little coil of its tentaclely goodness, and it really pulls the whole outfit together - so to speak! Now I'm ready to take on all comers in the jungle, the prettiest General you've ever seen!

Genre (Anime): Cherry Blossom Decadence

There are many themes which Anime has brought out of Japan, and one of the most evocative and enduring is cherry blossoms. They represent ephemeral beauty, not simply of the "Nothing gold can stay" variety, but of the swift death of the warrior in pursuit of her ideals. In Japan, early spring is the time of Hanami where friends and families gather together under the cherry blossom trees to eat, drink, and celebrate - a tradition that goes back for centuries. Gifts of cherry trees were given to the United States after World War II and planted around the Tidal Basin there among the monuments to presidents Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as well as the memorial for Martin Luther King, Jr. There is nothing quite like that double row of trees - one above the rim of the basin in an endless curve, and the other reflected back as the water gently laps against the wall.

My introduction of the cherry blossom as something brief, beautiful, and redolent of death was through CLAMP, a famous quartet whose many stories made the leap from drawn material to anime. It's difficult for me to say which of their many creations is my favorite, but my love hops nimbly between Card Captor Sakura (one of their gentler Magical Girl series), Tokyo Babylon (side story to X/1999 whose focus is the love between a pure boy and a cruel man), CLAMP School Detectives (another X/1999 side story, completely unrealistic and enormously fun), Angelic Layer (a Magical Girl story once removed), and xxxHolic (a mind-bender of a series, and companion to Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles). Cherry blossoms take a central roll in Tokyo Babylon; the two main characters, Subaru and Seishirō, meet under a cherry in full bloom and death and beauty haunt their entire, destructive interaction. I find the melding of sweetness and murder enticing, and all of that is contained within a cherry blossom.

It seemed appropriate for me, therefore, to settle on cherry blossoms for my second look from this month's Genre. Vengeful Threads' kimono-inspired mini dress is covered in pink cherry blossoms on a black field. The wrap dress has a wide belt, reminiscent of an obi without having the same straight shape; the color-blocking harkens back to other traditions without hewing too closely to them. I love the long leg-warmer boots, and the distance between the hem of the skirt and the top of the sock is just wide enough to be evocative. I couldn't resist the lure of impractical clothing with weaponry, though, so I added a bamboo shinai from Souzou Eien - also available at Genre. This is a wonderful, basic training sword and comes with three included poses that can be switched between by tapping the sword. You can also do what I did, and have it go along for the ride as you pose!

I went simple for the hair, choosing a solid, unrigged mesh style from Chimeric Fashions, who typically does some rather wonderful masks. It's a twist updo with large buns in the back, and since it's a single object it's easy to resize to fit a variety of head shapes. I particularly appreciated the big buns as they gave me a place to tuck hair sticks from Distorted Dreams; the lavender was a touch less pink than the rest of my look, but it made for a softer counter-point to an otherwise bright ensemble. There are two versions - one with beaded dangles and the other without - and my only complaint is that I don't have them in every color of the rainbow! I'm a total sucker for hair sticks. They default to facing forward, but I found it easy to shift and reposition them to the back of my head instead, and they can easily be adjusted to work with any hairstyle. Adding a third lavender accent is a tiny, floofy and cute doll from Muse that I fit against the front of my head. The little flower and ribbon bedecked ornament might not quite fit with my ...ruthless presentation as a cherry blossom assassin, but my love of sparkles and adorability won out over all other considerations.

Genre: Reversal of Fortune

I am not only decked out in a bunch of amazing Genre exclusives, but I also built a fun set in the moonlight from the same source; the Dark Arts has been fertile for pushing my style in directions it doesn't often go and this time I did a cool teal look for an icy fortune teller, in contrast to the fiery fanatic of my first look. I also went significantly sleeker and more modern, wanting a high contrast with my prior appearance.

My outfit is actually a combination of items from two stores - a mini-dress turned shirt from Vengeful Threads, and a pair of leggings from Sn@tch that match so perfectly that they seem made for each other. Both of them are textured with rich colors - a deep black with pale gray highlights, and a wonderfully rich teal that fades in and out of the blackness it is placed upon. The teal seems almost enameled, with hints of the black base beneath and some lovely light edges around the flames of the halter top. The Vengeful Threads halter top itself is quite sexy, with the teardrop cutout and low slung sides holding up a spiked waistband. I love the shift from dominant teal to dominant black, with the veves glowing magically out of the darkness of the skirt. This same effect is echoed on the leggings from Sn@tch - a black background with a pattern of inverted crosses glowing out of it. The effect is nearly a smooth one until the ankles, when the fabric buckles naturally and forms a perfect base for either the standard Second Life foot or the SLink feet I used here. The two together work wonderfully together and make a cohesive look that forms the basis for a truly impressive selection of accessories.

The first set of accessories all come from one store - Zanzibar creationZ - and work together wonderfully. Firstly the circlet with the soft sea green sliver of moon is one of a variety of crowns with a similar design but different seals on the gray metal "shadow", each representing a different demon from the Ars Goetia. All of the colors come with a different sigil and is named for the demon represented by that sigil - so take care whom you place upon your brow! They come in packs of two - for example, my Leraje circlet also comes with Amon in red. Also from ZcZ is the rings in blackened metal on my fingers - worked in the shapes of runes from Norse and Germanic cultures. Manaz, Uruz, Othilo, Dagaz, and Sowilo make up both hands, placed on various fingers with Sowilo tucked before the second knuckle. They're fit for the SLink Relaxed hand but each ring is editable independently to fit them to any hand of your choice. They are also resizable, which means that even on my unusually sized girl paw it was a matter of stretching them a little to make them fit. At the same time, I added the symbolic black and white manicure and pedicure from ZcZ, including a variety of other symbols - including the anhk one I'm using. I love them for their simplicity, and for symbols with directions there are options for coloring the nails appropriately.

ZcZ set a high bar for accessories, but luckily the rest of my accessories clear it handily! Over my eyes is an amazing mask and horns from BluPrintz with lovely dangling crystals. It's color change between several options - I'm showing bone horns with a black mask and yellow jewels, but there are tons of other options for other looks. I found the fit to be easy and there are even small bands which hook over the ears for verisimilitude. I paired it with the lipstick from Sn@tch - also featured above for leggings - a dull color with simple sheen which is a perfect match for the brighter, gleaming eyeshadows you can pick up with it. The final touch to my whole look is this amazing, color change via HUD necklace from LOULOU&CO, which comes in eye and gem styles. I chose the eye, of course, since I even seers need some way to see! It fits perfectly into the keyhole of my Vengeful Threads dress, and the petals and beads can all be shifted to different colors and patterns. It's a creepy and yet lovely accessory that I think all of the blind seers will be selecting from now on!

The backdrop I build is in the forests of Lasting City, a lovely sim designed and created by my dear friend Charlie. I shamelessly took over a grove, filling it first with the fountain and stone surround from Frogstar, which also include the curving stone frame and the hanging glow stones. I love the use of materials on this in particular - the stone looks slightly damp in the moonlight, catching the light sharply in contrast with the softer and duller ground. In the center I placed an enlarged crystal ball from Noctis - the one with the skeletal hands holding the stone in place. It also moves as you look into it - an eerie effect even in a much smaller globe. Arranged around the fountain are a set of candles in cross bases from Artisan Fantasy, seven total candle colors available. The wood is set to gleam glossily and the candles themselves give off a soft, golden glow. And finally, tucked off to the side and captured above in the shot that took in my non-Genre shoes is a wonderfully programmed Tarot Deck from Anachron which uses the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck that passed into public domain. There are a bunch of spreads available, and more astonishingly the deck is set to give a short description of the card, with additional notes if it's reversed. It's an amazing set for Tarot Readings in Second Life, and I can't recommend it enough!

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.