Genre: French Revolutions

"130 noms, 130 vies arrachées, 130 destins fauchés, 130 rires que l'on n'entendra plus, 130 voix qui à jamais se sont tues. Ces femmes, ces hommes, incarnaient le bonheur de vivre. C'est parce qu'ils étaient la vie qu'ils ont été tués. C'est parce qu'ils étaient la France qu'ils ont été abattus. C'est parce qu'ils étaient la liberté qui'ils ont été massacrés."

"Malgré les larmes, cette génération est aujourd'hui devenue le visage de la France."

François Hollande, President of the French Republic

130 names, 130 torn lives, 130 destinies broken, 130 peoples whose laughter we hear no more, 130 voices that have fallen silent. These women and these men embodied the joy of living. Because of this life that they were killed. Because they were France they were shot. Because they were free they were slaughtered.

Despite the tears, this generation is the face of France.

Cosmetics Faire: Six Colors, Six Looks

The amount of options at the Cosmetics Faire are simply jaw dropping, and I had fun flipping through the rainbow and exploring a bunch of options! The hair choices are awesome this time around. Pink Hustler has the cutest off-center ponytail design, another bit of hair wrapped around it's base and the rigged trailing ends available in normal and busty. It's recolorable via a HUD, offering up a ton of options with a single click. The textures come with a ton of options and most include subtle root shading. Ayashi also went the updo route - this time with a cute bun style complete with loose tendrils; I especially like the tendrils out of the buns themselves - gorgeous bit of verisimilitude. It comes both rigged and resizable and is recolorable via a HUD and the fatpack has a truly impressive array of options, from the realistic to the magical. [KoKoLoReS] has a couple of styles on offer; below I show off Robin, a short style with a fun, asymmetrical bang line. I really love the way the hair curves, as if it were cut by a master stylist. It comes with options for a single tint and a dichoromatic setup via various HUDs and the colors included are clear and bright. The final style I'm showing off is a short, curly style from Lovey Dovey with lots of body and one of my favorite things - tons of ombre textures including a fantastic rainbow - though I'm showing off a Torley style watermelon ombre in these images.

SL13B: Something Sweet

Second Life is celebrating another birthday - thirteen years! - and seventeen sims are decked out with a panoply of creations, artistic endeavors, styling stages, freebies of varying quality, and enthusiasm. I love wandering around attempting to take meaningful pictures while exploring the enormous variation in Second Life - while the stages tend to be high end creations from some of the foremost builders in Second Life, anyone can get one of the 36 parcels per exhibition sim to share their time, their art, their beliefs, their mysteries, their dedication. The results are always mixed; some displays are striking, some encourage the traveler to linger, some are confusing or involved while others are impossible to capture.

Genre: New Republic

The French New Republic is the theme for this round of Genre - that unnerving period of time after the French Revolution, when mores and values were overturned for good reasons and often violent ends. When I was a child, I perceived this revolution as serving all of France; as an adult, I'm all too aware of the privilege of those who took power after the initial riots. As power and prejudice combine to threaten the US now, as progress toward equality slams into fear of change, these historical revolutions seem a lot more relevant. So was who ended up suffering the most - the poor, people of color, religious minorities; I no longer believe that time arcs toward justice, but I hope we have enough people to make justice and it's siblings mercy and compassion, more central than they are now. The US is an old republic, now; we'll have to see what we can make of it, imperfect as we are.

Suspended

I keep running out of time, and while I find that frustrating, I also feel hopeless about it. There is a degree of waiting, of sitting and staring into space, of moving from one thing to the next to the next to the next which has captured me. Ideas, things I want to say, things I want to create - they all spin around me like motes caught up in a hurricane. I want them to stop, to slow down, to be able to capture one or two of them and transform them into something profound, but I don't know how. Solstice was just two days ago and the days are beginning to sink down toward the shortest day, and in less than a week a lot of things will end and restart again.

Say Their Names

Edward Sotomayor Jr.

Stanley Almodovar III

Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo

Juan Ramon Guerrero

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera

Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz

Luis S. Vielma

Kimberly Morris

Eddie Jamoldroy Justice

Darryl Roman Burt II

This morning, a young man killed other young men at Pulse, a club started by a sister who loved her brother. Barbara Poma wanted to make a supportive, loving LGBT club for people as part of keeping the memory of her brother, and how his coming out as gay changed their family, alive. It was a club which also celebrated racial diversity, particularly the cultures of the Latinx communities in Florida, and all of the names released to the public so far are on Latino men we have lost to violence based in hatred; the Orlando Sentinel is putting together profiles of each person as they can.

Deonka Deidra Drayton

Alejandro Barrios Martinez

Anthony Luis Laureanodisla

Jean Carlos Mendez Perez

Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez

Amanda Alvear

Martin Benitez Torres

Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon

Mercedez Marisol Flores

Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado

Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez

In moments like this, it's hard to not give into an answering hate. It's hard to not try to find some group to blame, so way to package this up so that the pain goes away faster, but this isn't an isolated event in a country which loves all of it's people. This is a reflection of the violence enacted against Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, and Queer people of all types. It's a reflection of the violence enacted against people of color. It's a reflection of the radiating effect of rage and entitlement.

Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez

Oscar A Aracena-Montero

Enrique L. Rios, Jr.

Miguel Angel Honorato

Javier Jorge-Reyes

Joel Rayon Paniagua

Jason Benjamin Josaphat

Cory James Connell

Juan P. Rivera Velazquez

Luis Daniel Conde

Hating the groups this murderer belongs to won't decrease the violence - it will simply embolden other people to attack those groups as well. Dismissing the murderer as crazy won't decrease the violence - it will simply encourage those who want to paint the world with their hatred and hurt those who suffer. Look to the helpers in this time, support those around you, protect the people around you and give them solace if you can.  Work together to repeal policies which deny gay men the ability to give blood to those they love, reinforce a dedication to supporting people as they express themselves and giving care to LGBTQ people who don't receive the support and love of their families of origin.

Say their names.

Shane Evan Tomlinson

Juan Chevez-Martinez

Jerald Arthur Wright

Leroy Valentin Fernandez

Tevin Eugene Crosby

Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega

Jean C. Nives Rodriguez

Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala

Brenda Lee Marquez McCool

Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan

Christopher Andrew Leinonen

Angel L. Candelario-Padro

Frank Hernandez

Paul Terrell Henry

Antonio Davon Brown

Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz

Akyra Monet Murray

Sunday Squee: Bare@Rose's Raffle

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.

One of the most generous offerings on the grid is the raffle at Bare@Rose. It goes 24/7 all through the year, an ever-changing avalanche of items. Some are seasonal, some are unique, some are plays on items for sale in the store - all of them are up to Bare@Rose's standards of quality and style. Sometimes there are themes - like an extended Magical Girl set that includes several outfits and a slew of accessories, or the steam set which branches out into instruments and vehicles. It does take some time - raffle prizes are given out every four or five minutes - making it an awesome place to park yourself if you're going off to do something else, or a place to hang out with some friends. In that context, extras from the Raffle Gods become something fun to pass out to your friends, or the odd newbie who comes your way! There are male and female items both, and a lot of accessories are gender neutral, so don't let your masculine tendencies bar you from the glory of Bare@Rose freebies.

LEA 26, 27, 28, and 29 - Pop-Up Art

The 5 Dimension group is made up of Betty Tureaud, Tansee, Gem Preiz and Mandel Solano - all of them collaborating for four sim wide events through June. One of these events is the Pop Up Art Event, where artists created images which literally pop up when one walks over their disk. Two of the artists won prizes - Frankx Lefavre and NaTas Janus - but all of them are on view at the 2650 level of all four sims. One hundred dots were placed down for people to buy and build upon, and thirty-five creations were made. It's incredible to experience - walking onto an image and watching art appear around you. The topics, styles, and effects are variable; most of them have an animated effect, and a few are interactive. Definitely check these out before they vanish with the change of AiR at the end of the month!

1. Interlock Chaos by Elle Thorkveld

Midnight Madness: You See Right Through Me

Midnight after the first Friday of the month, and the noon after that, is when Midnight Madness takes place. An event which allows 1500 people to click a mania of sorts; unlike a traditional mania, where the prize is delivered after a gap in time, this one is delivered immediately. Most of the stores involved restart their sim right before to discourage campers, and there are strict ARC and scrip rules in order to minimize the inevitable lag as hundreds of avatars divebomb the sims in search of high quality, free items.

Which is what inspired this look. Letting midnight gifts from [LCKY] and [ SAKIDE ] meet a noon gift from #EMPIRE (by far the hardest to get!) in order to create awesomeness. In most cases the noon and midnight prizes are different colors in sets, but [LCKY] and a few other stores offered up  different styles or items. The quality is undeniable; the timing is a nightmare! It's worth it to check up on the Midnight Madness, though, and build your plan for next month.

Hamlet - In a Nutshell

Most of my high school poetry isn't worth the paper it was written on, but in my senior year I became obsessed with Hamlet, and one line in particular - "I could be bounded up in a nut-shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams." This poem resulted; I was reminded of it while exploring something made by other people inspired by Shakespeare.

At night, bad dreams lurk behind a casement of stars
in an overgrown garden to descend into your nutshell
and forever awaken you to the reality of life:

At night, Danish princes with bloodied swords and hands
and shirts and souls wander the corridors of Elisore
to find the rat behind the tapestry and dispatch of it:

At night, that rat is I, as I am the queen - shocked and dismayed
for there is the root of madness revealed in action
and there is a ghostly shadow hovering:

At night, primrose and rue are scattered by the hand
of a maid gone mad as she waders behind the scarlet prince
and his like uncle, trailing the caverns of sleep until dawn:

At night, when the maid lies sleeping in the bitter earth
and belated tears are shed by one mad prince, the world shifts
into a different arrangement, and eight useless husks lie dead:

Poppin' Penguin Hunt!: Summer Lovin'

This was a pretty straightforward hunt, most of the popsicles nearby and placed so you can see them. Many of the stores have hints - good ones - and there were only a couple where I either couldn't find the item or couldn't buy it. It cost me about 20$L for the hunt prizes which cost; not bad, overall, though I prefer free hunts of course! I took pictures of the prizes below, including alts when things were couples poses.

1. The Ferret & Hedgie Shoppee - Ice bucket hat

Month of the Blog: May 2016

The massive posts in April left me reeling - five to six posts a day is an exhausting pace to keep up, even if I wasn't working! A lot of the top posts in May are from the tail end of the Fantasy Fair, those glorious last few days. I've completely failed at all of my challenges but I did do some Linden Endowment for the Arts exploration - one more month until they all change over, so check them out while you can!

Top Ten Posts in May

1. Fantasy Faire in Review
2. Judgment, from the Self and Others
3. Clawtooth Challenge
4. Fantasy Faire: The Echtra Experience
5. Fantasy Faire: Creations of Serenity
6. Fantasy Faire: Serenity
7. Fantasy Faire: A Traveller in Twilight Illusion
8. Fantasy Faire: A Traveller in Echtra
9. LEA 11: Lucifer Morningstar
10. Fantasy Faire: Giant Deoridhe