UBUMExORIGAMI - Endings and Deaths

August is the month of ghosts in Japan, and Ubume has returned with another if it's Hunt Stories to chill you to your bones! This is the guide organized by deaths and endings, so if you're missing one you can go right to it. I've also added in story beats for the endings, each of which give you a different fraction of the story. I've also written a general introduction and the story hunt organized by location, so head there if that's what you're looking for. Just as a warning - everything beyond here is potentially a spoiler!

Enchantment: The Good Witch of the West

Most people forget that in the original Oz book there were two good witches - the unnamed Good Witch of the North, who initially met Dorothy at the sight of her landing, and gave her a protective kiss on her forehead. She was small, plump, and elderly with a warm spirit that was in contrast to the lean elegance of Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. She was further eclipsed in the movie, along with silver slippers, when Glinda took her place and introduced a plot hole which didn't exist in the original text. I love to revisit the original books in all their flawed glory, the dreams of a man written to please the fancies of young girls and further expanded to feed their appetite for wonder. Oz is one of the few historical series which are brimming with women, drowning even the sexism endemic to Baum's authorship in the glory of individuality and variety. It was with much glee that I realized this month's theme for Enchantment was the Wizard of Oz - and it has proved to be a wonderful reflection of the creativity and joy of it's source.

Sunday Squee: Second Life's 13th Birthday

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've been spending much of the day wandering around Second Life's 13th Birthday celebration, which is open through the weekend. The stages are all organized works of art spanning one to four sims at once while the display sims are broken up into about twenty-five individual squares, each in the hands of a different builder. The effect is cacophonous, highly eclectic, and often a challenge to photograph! I love it as a measure of the sheer breadth of people and talent in Second Life - by and large this is a world made up of enthusiastic amateurs, and the birthday celebration is always a striking place to see that set side by side. It's also a good place to pick up some freebies and landmarks of things to explore in the wider Second Life universe - I already have a few landmarks and notecards for when the Birthday sims close. The cake stage has already been exploded into tiny bits, but the rest will remain in place for another couple of days before they're returned. Whether you want to try to catch it all, or just seek out the highlights, I highly recommend heading over before it all vanishes into the mists.

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.

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.

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.

The Last Unicorn: Weeping

"You must never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention." Her voice was gentle, and without pity. "Never run," she said. "Walk slowly, and pretend to be thinking of something else. Sing a song, say a poem, do your tricks, but walk slowly and she may not follow. Walk very slowly, magician."

So they fled across the night together, step by step, the tall man in black and the horned white beast. The magician crept as close to the unicorn's light as he dared, for beyond it moved hungry shadows, the shadows of the sounds that the harpy made as she destroyed the little there was to destroy of the Midnight Carnival. But another sound followed them long after these had faded, followed them into morning on a strange road — the tiny, dry sound of a spider weeping.

 ― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

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.

The Last Unicorn: Loss

The unicorn was gray and still. "There is magic on me," she said. "Why did you not tell me?"

"I thought you knew," the magician answered gently. "After all, didn't you wonder how it could be that they recognized you?" Then he smiled, which made him look a little older. "No, of course not. You never would wonder about that."

"There has never been a spell on me before," the unicorn said. She shivered long and deep. "There has never been a world in which I was not known."

― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

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: Death

"What is plucked will grow again,
What is slain lives on,
What is stolen will remain —
What is gone is gone."


"What is sea-born dies on land,
Soft is trod upon.
What is given burns the hand —
What is gone is gone."

 ― Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

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

Snowy Secrets

There are so many events going on that it's a challenge to keep up, but I'm having fun pulling together pretty outfits, finding pretty places, and taking pretty pictures!

Iridescence

Iridescence - the dream of rainbows hidden in other shades.

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.