Sn@tch: Spring has Sprung

Sn@tch is currently releasing one of her seasonal grab bags, with twenty-one outfit bits available in shades of pink, purple, and blue. There's a little bit of everything, from this ultra-brief look to some longer dresses suitable for a classy garden party. There are some new lucky boards nearby as well, and even some riot vendors ready for a sudden rush. The view is misty and gorgeous, and it's a lovely way to spend a few hours fishing up bags for March parties.

Steam Hunt: Up in the Air

There are a lot fewer pants in Steam Victoria than I expected!

Sn@tch - Third Period

Sn@tch's fishing prize has changed to Third Period, a mix of weaters, pants, and skirts which can be mixed and matched and paired with long socks and sneakers. Fishing aren't the only freebies at Sn@tch, though; behind Sainhmihiu you can see the lucky boards, which are open to anyone hanging out there. I've gotten some awesome goodies form these lucky boards; it's especially cool that they include all the color variations shown in the standard sizes - perfect for a new player who is building up their clothing options.

7Seas Fishing is extremely newbie friendly - the basic fishing rod costs 100$L and you can catch everything at Sn@tch with it. The fish themselves are wearable - Sainmhiniu always wears a few of my favorites - and spin in circles around the wearer. If you pay extra for bait you can level up and pick up Rare, Ultra-rare, and Super-ultra-rare fish as well. Setting Sainmhiniu out to fish is always one of my pleasures, and I love seeing the sheer variety that Sn@tch provides.

Sn@tch - Girls Over Flowers

Sn@tch's fishing prize has changed to the new, brief, and lovely Girls Over Flowers, worn by Sainmhiniu here. In the background you can see the vast crowds currently hanging out in the store, fishing their hearts out.

7Seas Fishing is extremely newbie friendly - the basic fishing rod costs 100$L and you can catch everything at Sn@tch with it. The fish themselves are wearable - Sainmhiniu always wears a few of my favorites - and spin in circles around the wearer. If you pay extra for bait you can level up and pick up Rare, Ultra-rare, and Super-ultra-rare fish as well. Setting Sainmhiniu out to fish is always one of my pleasures, and I love seeing the adorable outfits Sn@tch provides.

Fantasy Faire: The Echtra Experience

When you land in Echtra, there is a sign you can click to join the Echtra Experience to learn about what's going on and get some shiny gifts! The goal is to look for small golden footprints and stand on them, thus advancing what you know. Initially, a large black band will show up across the bottom of your screen and you have to accept permissions to affect your avatar. Rikkon the Cheerful is standing right nearby; when you move on top of the golden footprints, you're view moves and he speaks to you. 

Fantasy Faire: The Tale of Exiles Hunt - Part 2

Part One is here.

Chapter IV: Preparations

Bard Queen: Before you leave, emissary, I would like to give you another gift myself. Please pick one of these items...
Bard Queen: The elven knife has the keenest of blades. It will cut through the hardest roots, the strongest vines. It may even cut through rock, although that would take time and blunt the edge.
Bard Queen: On the other hand, I could give you instead this very special candle. Burn it and it will surely calm down even the most aggressive creatures. Or you may find use in the special unguents worked into the wax or its magically enhanced wick.
Bard Queen: The choice is yours, which one do you prefer?

Fantasy Faire: The Tale of Exiles Hunt - Part 1

You purchase the HUD from vendors at the landing areas of each sim; there's a standard version, which gives your the HUD, and the deluxe, which also gives out an outfit to wear. You need to be wearing three things out of the HUD folder - Two which say "Attach me" and the HUD. A permission request will come up when you put everything on; accept it so that you can be moved, you can be shown wearing the right things, etc... 

My comments and hints are in italics. Part Two is here.

Chapter I: A Hero is Needed

Meet the Bard Queen in Fairlands Junction

You will be teleported to the Fairlands, right next to the Bard Queen. Click on her and a video will play, telling the story of the Quest you are about to accept. She will also give you a necklace to wear to mark you as her Emissary - a lovely gold harp. 

On9 Anniversary Hunt

It's On9's Anniversary, and to celebrate they're hosting a hunt! Each store has a cupcake in their section, and inside of each cupcake is a landmark and a hint to find the hunt prize. You don't look for it at the On9 Event - instead, take that landmark to the store and look for another pretty pink and cyan cupcake for your prize. I highly recommend picking up all of the hint folders and going from store to store - nothing is gained by returning to the On9 Sim in between each hunt. All the hints seemed decent to me and there were very few hunt shenanigans like hiding things inside of things or having half a dozen cupcakes in view! Where I thought something was a little above the challenge norm I've included notes.

8+ [Octopus] - buy the cupcake for the prize

Wearable Balloon With Pose

Sn@tch that Clothes from those Fish!

I don't know how many people remember the 7Seas Fishing Game - it seemed like it was all the rage a few years ago, but recently it's been a lot quieter - but Sn@tch still offers us the wonderful prize of free clothing, changing out the offerings about twice a month. You can fish for everything using a basic, unleveled fishing pole, though you won't get some of the fancier fish - every now and then I toss Sainmhiniu a few thousand Linden for some bait so she can up her levels and pick up her rares.

Exposeur Sale for a Good Cause

RubyStarlight Wirter sent out a notice today that she's holding a second sale - unusual for her; Exposeur has only a handful of sales throughout the year - for a very good cause. Her lovely kitty cat Chloe needs medical care, and the cost is depressingly high.

In order to raise funds, her whole store is on sale for at least a week! Tons of amazing poses and pose sets for 50$L to 100$L with gacha at a mind blowing 15$L. If you're like me, you like to have a whole backlog of poses - and I know I'm about to flood my poor PoseAnywhere HUD with every Exposeur pose I can get my hands on. I hope you'll join me there - for Chloe.

Enchantment: The Last Unicorn Hunt

In addition to a ton of awesome items, most of them clearly inspired by The Last Unicorn, Enchantment is also running a hunt to encourage you to visit the thirty stores offering up free goodies inside a book. For ease of travel, there is a HUD which also give out hints for each store; it is an enormous HUD that I ended up tucking off to one side so I have enough screen to hunt with. I love the idea of built in hints, though - it makes things so much simpler, and many of them are charmingly redolent of the books themselves. Where I've hit a hiccup, I'll add in an additional hint of my own to take you a step further, but overall these books are not hard to find.

It's a fun hunt with a reasonable number of stops and some truly amazing prizes - many of these will be showing up on my main account as well as on the lovely Bizarre, my Unicorn!

Images of the prizes are below the cut!

The Last Unicorn: Immortality

"Unicorns are immortal. It is their nature to live alone in one place: usually a forest where there is a pool clear enough for them to see themselves-for they are a little vain, knowing themselves to be the most beautiful creatures in all the world, and magic besides. They mate very rarely, and no place is more enchanted than one where a unicorn has been born. The last time she had seen another unicorn the young virgins who still came seeking her now and then had called to her in a different tongue; but then, she had no idea of months and years and centuries, or even of seasons. It was always spring in her forest, because she lived there, and she wandered all day among the great beech trees, keeping watch over the animals that lived in the ground and under bushes, in nests and caves, earths and treetops. Generation after generation, wolves and rabbits alike, they hunted and loved and had children and died, and as the unicorn did none of these things, she never grew tired of watching them."

― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

Colour! Colour! Colour! Week 5: Dark Moderate 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:130 G:163 B:55 (aka #82a337)

I'm loving the inspiration to go back through my inventory and unearth old treasures. This dress (and matching lipstick) are both from Senzafine and were among the first mesh clothing I purchased. I fell in love with the dress and jacket combination, and that sort of combination has remained a staple of many mesh creator's portfolio. The elbows show some of the "gummyness" of early rigged SL mesh, but I think the excellent texturing of the dress in general, and the unique and striking style, more than make up for the difficulties of the Second Life form! I gave up trying to find accessories that matched after setting up my face, though; the group gift Truth hair is dyed, as are the Sax Shepherd Designs wings and shoes - thank you for creators for making things modify ok! My favorite part is the eyeshadow, though - part of an early playful collection from HooT, they are ladybugs painted in a variety of colors - in this case green. I love playful touches like that, where the humor can be subtle and sweet.

Roses Blooming in Winter

My Alice Project hair is free until midnight, at which point it converts to 50$L - there's VIP gifts of the same style which will be available until the end of her Winter Love Gift Season.

My dress, from Sis Boom, is only 60$L through the weekend, and well worth it! I want it in every shade humanly possible.

Advent: Day 21

Advent Season continues, and there are only a handful of days until the end. My existential dread has lifted a little for this, the darkest night, but there is still a universe of things not being done and a subtle sense of ennui... or not so subtle, as the case may be. I think the funniest thing about this kind of mood is that is is so diffuse - I really have every reason to be happy and very few to not be! And yet, emotions persist.


Cocoa helps.

Advent: Day 20

Why do we do the things we do?

Winter is a time for internal questions, for reflecting back on ourselves and our plans and goals to see if we're happy with where we are. I have mixed feelings - happiness and sadness mingling in a confusing manner. Can we ever be entirely happy with who we are? Or is my very doubt that we could a way to excuse what I'm currently disliking about myself?

The Advent Season keeps on trucking, and so do I.

Advent: Day 16

Day sixteen of the Advent Season, and also the day that the Falln Angel Creations hunt is beginning - so swing by there if you want presents for 1$L each!

For this look today I broke up a couple of sets: the Chop Zuey necklace comes with matching earrings and the Emerald Couture boots are actually part of a full outfit of the miniskirt design. I mixed it up more to get a sense of the variety than any sartorial impulses; the pink and teal doesn't really work with the red, even if I did call back the teal in my earrings. It's nice to have something on my feet, though! It wasn't until I ran through this on my non-footed alt that I realized just how pervasive shoes made for pre-made feet are!

Advent: Day 14

I have to admit, today I really wasn't in the mood to Advent - but I'm already thirteen days in, and it seemed a shame to break a running streak. I've been thinking about why I'm doing this, who's reading, and the purpose of freebies overall. It's been fun to see how far I could push the idea of "make an outfit only out of Advent Freebies" and I rather like the results, even if they aren't what I would pay for necessarily. As for who is reading - the nature of Advent is that anything I do won't be a hint as to what I can get but rather an indication of the quality of the stores overall. The flaw in single-day events is the limits on advertising; the advantage is a certain life int he mind of the seeker, who will have to return precisely in order to get what they want. By far, my favorites are the Advents with a little more forgiveness - where they open up over the period of time but can be picked up late - but I can't fault the creators who want to live within the minds of their customers for an entire season.

Advent: Day 13

Advent continues another day - and this was a long day, a tiring but invigorating day. Another day I might have more to say, but today I'm sort of worded out. The world is a strange, wonderful, tiring, snuggly sort of place and I'm glad I'm in it.

Advent: Day 12

Historically, Advent was the Twelve Days before Christmas (or the twelve days between the solstice and the new year) but most of the Second Life Advents go for the entirety of December with a few starting twelve days before the 25th. That day is coming up - but for today we have the lovely number of 12, one of my favorites. This is twelve posts in twelve days - items picked up, opened, sorted, worn, and photographed - all on top of everything else going on. I'm not quite sure what's inspiring me to do this, or when I'd forget, but 2015 seems to be the year of "Deo follows through on some things" and it's interesting to see how it happens and for how long.