La Petite Morte

O! never say that I was false of heart,
Though absence seemed my flame to qualify,
As easy might I from my self depart
As from my soul which in thy breast doth lie:
That is my home of love: if I have ranged,
Like him that travels, I return again;
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.
Never believe though in my nature reigned,
All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,
That it could so preposterously be stained,
To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;
   For nothing this wide universe I call,
   Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

--William Shakespeare

A Year of Weekly Themes: Luck!

Softpaw Sommer is doing a Weekly Theme Blogger Challenge and I thought it would be fun to pitch in with an image for each week!

This Week's Theme: Luck!

Hamingja is an old Norse concept, usually translated as "luck". It comes from an entirely different worldview, though - part person, part ancestor, part energy, part resources. It' a word which encompasses where we come from and the advantages we're born within addition to what we do with those resources, as much a spiritual and religious concept as a practical and tangible one.

I think about hamingja a lot. I think about the advantages I have, what I do with them, how I am in the world. I worry that the contemplation undercuts the action - but the only way to determine that is to get out there and act.

Colour! Colour! Colour! Week 11: Mostly Desaturated Dark Violet

The Weekly Color Challenge is back this year with a different format, through the Flickr Group Colour! Colour! Colour! Each week is given an RGB code.

This Week's Color is R:132 G:91 B:149 (#845b95)

Class is one of my blind spots when it comes to axes of discrimination, and so I found the Cracked Podcast on class in the US - and the extensive related links - fascinating. I believe I'm middle class; I really recognized myself in the description of looking down both on people from "trailer parks" and people with  "Legacies" for Ivy League Schools. However, I have a lot of fantasies of and aspirations to be classy: I wield power through social leverage instead of physical, I try to have "good taste" and not be garish or lewd, I reify self-control and philanthropy. Ethically, I'm solidly pro-social justice, but examining my own class is unexpectedly unnerving.

Cosmetics Faire: The Light Eternal

There are only a couple of days left to Cosmetics Faire and the offerings are awesome! In addition to lovely things for the face, there's also hair, eyes, even nails to delight. For example, my hair is from Pink Hustler and is available in a ton of colors with a special Ice HUD to purchase as an add on. I am a huge fan of HUD driven hair colors, especially when fades are included - and in addition to solid colors, Pink Hustler's HUDs have some glorious and fun fades. The hair itself is well-rigged and interesting, with fun mesh hair strands and a natural flow of hair around the pig tail piece. I'm especially fond of the side part bang with it's delicate edging; it frames my face beautifully and actually looks like something I'd do offline! I chose a pale color to contrast with the very dark skin I'm wearing so I can show off NOX.'s metallic freckles. Available in silver and gold, and for the cheeks, the full face, and the full body, these add a bit of sparkle to the speckles. They come with Omega and Catwa appliers, but I'm showing them off in tattoo form on the basic body. I love the uneven placement, the rough edges, and the effect of total coverage - I'm not a freckle person in general, but I have to admit full body rainbow freckles are very appealing!

Sunday Squee: Florence

The Sunday Squee is about things that make me happy and excited. From books to movies to television shows to podcasts, I'll highlight less commonly known things as a way to share what I love. If you want to join in the Sunday Squee, please link back to me, magnifying both of our joy.

I love Florence, the city which brought us the Medici family, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, the Borgias, an enormous chunk of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, beautiful clothing and art, and a world of intrigue, death, and discovery. The Medici themselves encompass a story of new money become old, a humble family giving it's sons to be Popes and it's daughters to be Queens before itself becoming hereditary Dukes of Florence to rule in their own right. I came to love the Medici through Lorenzo de' Medici, grandson of the founder of the bank and dynasty Giovanni. A great lover of art, humanism, and controlling other people - Lorenzo gave us Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli and Michelangelo Buanarroti, among others, as his enduring legacies, and helped to broker the painting of the Sistine Chapel. You can see why I love his legacy even as his personal politics rankle! He altered representative democracy in Florence to elevate his own power, and understandable but frustrating choice we see within our own government now.

A Year of Weekly Themes: Rainbow!

Softpaw Sommer is doing a Weekly Theme Blogger Challenge and I thought it would be fun to pitch in with an image for each week!

This Week's Theme: Rainbow!

I am, let's say, fairly well known as a lover of rainbows. A few years ago it took over as my favorite color, a symbol of how I want to view the world. You see, in order for a rainbow to be a rainbow, every color has to be itself. Red can't pretend to be yellow, it has to be red. Green has to be all the different shades of green instead of turning in an inferior performance as blue. A rainbow is best represented when every color is itself, working in harmony with the other colors, none excluded.

Likewise, I want a world where each person is recognized and honored for who they are, where we figure out ways to honor a plurality of people that not only are different but have to be different. I believe that everyone has something wonderful to bring to the world, if we could only make circumstances under which it can shine.

Colour! Colour! Colour! Week 10: Very Dark Lime Green

The Weekly Color Challenge is back this year with a different format, through the Flickr Group Colour! Colour! Colour! Each week is given an RGB code.

This Week's Color is R:0 G:51 B:0 (#003300)

The year has tilted toward warmth and sunshine. 

Growth is fed by the tears of loss rendered sweet by the transformation of time.

Magic of Oz: 2016 Easter Egg Hunt

The Magic of Oz annual Easter Egg Hunt is back in all of it's glory! This is one of my favorite events - at the landing point (see above) you click a sign for instructions and your Easter basket, but I'll spoil how it works here - wear one of the baskets (big or small), click all the eggs you see, and every six eggs you can select a stack of eggs from one of the tons of stores offering gifts. The eggs themselves are about a quarter of a meter high and brightly colored; they vanish when you click one, and reappear pretty quickly - so you don't really need to compete with the crowds on the sim! Also, there's a 30 second lag time between eggs (it tells you when the 30 seconds are up), so you have time to admire the scenery and snap some pictures for posterity.

Genre (Medieval): Dane-geld

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation 

To call upon a neighbour and to say: -- 

"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight, 

Unless you pay us cash to go away." 

And that is called asking for Dane-geld, 

And the people who ask it explain 

That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld 

And then you'll get rid of the Dane! 

Monday Meme: Never Have I Ever

Strawberry is back with another meme, and promises to play with us more when she has time. Yay! This one is an extended game of Never Have I Ever - a common drinking game - and she's inviting us all to play.

Sunday Squee: The Room I, II, and III

The Sunday Squee is about things that make me happy and excited. From books to movies to television shows to podcasts, I'll highlight less commonly known things as a way to share what I love. If you want to join in the Sunday Squee, please link back to me, magnifying both of our joy.

You open up a game and are presented with a room, mostly in darkness, and a box. The box is covered with buttons, dials, doors, and handles. Different things can be opened, turned, pressed, and manipulated. Different puzzles present themselves and then are solved - every now and then a question mark pops up, offering guidance in what direction you should go.

You have started playing one of the three The Room games.

A Year of Weekly Themes: Time!

Softpaw Sommer is doing a Weekly Theme Blogger Challenge and I thought it would be fun to pitch in with an image for each week!

This Week's Theme: Time!

An image around the theme of time is ironic since I'm already late! 

A White Rabbit in earnest.

Colour! Colour! Colour! Week 9: Very Dark Magenta

The Weekly Color Challenge is back this year with a different format, through the Flickr Group Colour! Colour! Colour! Each week is given an RGB code.

This Week's Color is R:102 G:0 B:102 (#660066)

I don't show much skin in Second Life.

The reason is both personal and contextual. Personally, I'm on the shy end - online or off I tend to flash a bit of cleavage and little more. Contextually, nudity in Second Life is common, low stakes, and easy. Bodies don't show the wear of years or the weight of cares and cultural mores are lax.

I prefer to view nudity like cursing - to be deployed deliberately and for great effect.

I prefer my sexuality as much a matter of implication as fact.

The best mysteries must be plumbed.

Cometics Faire: Smile and Sparkle

Until March 31st the Cosmetics Faire is going on, and the lewt available is amazing! In addition to cosmetics, hair, eyes, and even decorations for the face are on sale. I managed to pull together a really fun look from these bright and cheerful offerings. Central to the whole look is a set of coordinated cosmetics and separate nails from La Boheme. The eyeshadow, blush, and lipstick is accompanied by a second set of blush and two eyebrow styles as well. There are four total palettes, each one drawing some inspiration from the Pantone colors of the year. The nails, in contrast, have a relatively simple theme but are tinted to match a wide variety of skin tones for the perfect French Manicure with jeweled embellishments - simple and lovely. I love her nails for the polish, and she carries that same sleek style to her cosmetics as well.

Colour! Colour! Colour! Week 8: Bright Blue

The Weekly Color Challenge is back this year with a different format, through the Flickr Group Colour! Colour! Colour! Each week is given an RGB code.

This Week's Color is R:64 G:67 B:225 (#4043e1)

Some colors are easy to find. Others are much more of a challenge! This color damn near broke me; I ended up tinting a few different things to match, but I rather like the effect of fading into the background - set apart by nothing but a few shadows.

A Year of Weekly Themes: Leap!

Softpaw Sommer is doing a Weekly Theme Blogger Challenge and I thought it would be fun to pitch in with an image for each week!

This Week's Theme: Leap!

I've fallen a few weeks behind and there are rainbows in my future! One of the side effects of doing a lot is falling behind when a lot of things pile up, and as my focus has shifted offline and into roleplaying, my ability to keep up has suffered. It's a sort of leap-before-you-look kind of thing - appropriate for a theme of leaping!

When I first started putting together this image, I was envisioning looking from below - but I think the effect from above, just moments before gravity takes over, is more striking. There's always that moment when you wonder if this time gravity will let you slip free so you can fly.

Vintage Mists: Field of View and You

In Second Life we have exquisite control over our images, and one tool is modifications to the field of view (FOV) using ctrl-8 through ctrl-0. The normal Field of View is good for full body to knee's up shots, but a fish-bowl effect starts to show up if one zooms in any closer to anything due to the default FOV, and your background will be broad, encompassing the whole screen.Narrowing the FOV works both for close-ups, where it removes the fishbowl effect of a portrait, and for distance shots where you want to minimize the sense of depth. Above, I used Ctrl-0 to narrow the FOV once, leaving room for an expansive and deep image while squaring off the sides.

Sunday Squee: Prima Ballerina Misty Copeland

The Sunday Squee is about things that make me happy and excited. From books to movies to television shows to podcasts, I'll highlight less commonly known things as a way to share what I love. If you want to join in the Sunday Squee, please link back to me, magnifying both of our joy.

Misty Copeland broke all the rules in regards to becoming a ballerina. She started late.She developed breasts. She is black.

She is the most amazing dancer I have ever seen.

Fool's Gold

What is authenticity?

What is it to be truly yourself?

Food, and how food is changed over space and time, is one of the easier to track types of authenticity. Granted, a lot of people will have differing arguments for what is and is not authentic, but there is usually sufficient records that an enterprising person can find the threads between actual food eaten in China and Kung Pao Chicken - both are equally authentic, but spring from different wells. Authenticity becomes tricky depending on the viewer, though; someone with imperfect information but exaggerated power may rewrite over history - replacing white faces over rock & roll or hip hop, for example. This becomes even messier played out over the lives of actual people, where authenticity - accurate or not authenticity - may mean the difference between starvation and a paycheck.

Chasing authenticity, I'm driven by the thought that the root of the pursuit is insecurity. Given that, though, the path to security remains fraught. Authenticity is as much about what we measure ourselves against as anything else; in a vacuum all I'm left with are questions.

Genre: Wild Derby Girls Run Free

This Genre look is a combination of bunches of things, and I think it turned out rather well! One of the things I love about Roller Derby is how the looks can combine femininity and aggression into a single, cohesive whole - neither undermines the other in this world of battle. In addition to a bunch of things pulled in from my inventory, I combined pieces from Sn@tch's Roller Rebel Bodysuit - most of the textures on my form - and :{MV}:'s Hellcat Derby rigged mesh pieces into a cohesive whole. It amazes me how seamlessly everything fits together; the textured bodysuit with it's long sleeves and high waisted corset piece tucks beautifully under all three :{MV}: pieces. I used the white bodysuit to balance out the dark red of my :{MV}: top, and balanced the red out with a pair of tights from Stellar and the Anachron helmet in black, red, and white.