Haunted hollow

She’s not dead. She’s just post-processed that way. Nomine’s 100L sale ends today, but the Cross Halter Dress is eternal. Munchflower Zaius lavished such care on the individualized fabrics of sixteen gorgeous variations on this gown that it was extremely difficult to choose just one to show you. While many are full-on goth, there are a number of variations that would work for 1930s role-play or an evening at The Gardens of Apollo. The dress is mesh and comes in only two sizes, so be sure to try the demo if you are used to XXS-XL sizing. Portia fit the Standard version just fine, but it was more fun to blow her up to fill out the Curvy version.

Credits to creators
Nomine, Mesh Cross Halter Dress Curvy – cherry
Glam Affair – Halloween skin GIFT
:[P]:-Soul Ink-Lothlorien
::DT:: ::JoLiE:: V2 Beautymarks Moles and Freckles
- .HoD. – Compassion Piercing Set Prt. 1 – Silver Lining
[plastik]-DrownTattoo-Upper
>TRUTH< Zaria – ivory
House of Fox, Feather Tippet (recent subo gift)
Bliensen + MaiTai – Samedi – Earring – Red Glass -
Fleshtone :: Narsha Vanity Cuff [Onyx/Gold]
:: PM :: Demonia Claws (VIP gift, small fee to join)
pose: PDA
location: Wretched Hollow

More prettier (if that’s possible)

Portia’s lovely Dreaming Klimt necklace is new from Bliensen + MaiTai at FTLO’s Black Market. Lene is a gorgeous new LB skin from Mother Goose’s. There are four versions to win. Join the group and get the notice with LMs to each of the shops. (I have to say that Milok Hermit’s skins make sense of Portia’s weird face in a way that few others do. For that I am truly grateful.) The new group gift hair from Red Mint is not a realistic colour, but it’s soft and flattering, not electric blue and terrifying like a lot of fantasy styles. It’s available until January 17th at the store.

Credits to creators
Bliensen + MaiTai, Dreaming Klimt Necklace (Black Market item for January; ty Plurabelle Laszlo!)
(r)M, Hair No.18(f) gg 01’12 (gg in shop)
Mother Goose’s, Lene1(LB)Main shop (main shop LB)
Mother Goose’s, Pointed Lashes 1 (LB)
Poetic Colors, classic – molten chocolate (m) bright
u.f.o, always belong to you coral (Collabor88 till the 7th of January)
Glitterati, Headshot 3
This is an unGIMPed face! The neck, however, needed work because of the lighting and pose.

Sweater girls

Watch out for your av’s ego. As soon as I bought Portia a handful of gowns from Phoenix Rising, she went out and crashed every ball and opera on the grid. Pretty soon she was running with a rich and powerful pack, and the paparazzi began to follow her everywhere. Now she claims she doesn’t want to be photographed ever again. Well, maybe by van Lamsweerde and Matadin, who are “true artists.”

Notice how Portia seems to be refusing to have her picture taken but has actually stopped long enough for everyone to admire her Aimesi sweater, Phoenix Rising shorts, and Paper Couture boots?

Naomi Campbell has nothing on Portia. She threw her purse at me when the fri.day belt she was wearing under her Fishy Strawberry sweater started to chafe. I had already lost the best light of the day convincing her that no one would confuse the baggy uppers of the pink izm pants with her own thighs, which I described as justly famous perfectly toned towers of pixeliciousness. She accused me of being stingy with the compliments and then asked me what I thought of her butt.

Credits to creators
Light look and closeup
sweater: Fishy Strawberry, Knit Sweater Greyish Purple (TDR)
pants: izm, Go to the Conveni pants pink
skin: Heartsick, Ayame Illusion Crimson Kiss (Mid Cleavage) (from the free Ayame Three Tone teaser)
hair: Exile, BetsyBanging Black (old TDR item)
earrings: Eclectica, from the Jazz Chinoiserie Set
purse: Vinyl Cafe, Dominion Purse Pink Tartan (free at Free*Style’s Juicy location)
belt: fri.day, Wide Waist.Belt (Mauve)

Dark look
sweater: Aimesi, part of Aimesi Fashion Group Gift Pullover+ Leggings
shorts: Phoenix Rising, part of Frilled (25L till October 30)
skin: Heartsick, Ayame Illusion Crimson Kiss (Mid Cleavage) (from the free Ayame Three Tone teaser)
hair: Clawtooth, Somebody’s Lady Coco
boots: Paper Couture, Typhoon Boots Black
tights: Paper Couture, Dark Tights_Blue Dots (1L)
necklace: Miel, Elle Uber Bow
hat: ? [creator Maxwell Maven], Unisex Fedora (modded)

emotions: YadNi Monde, Yadnis Emoter HUD v 3.1
poses: Olive Juice, Slapping (PPH2 hunt gift)
set: Gauged, Photo Studio 1

Cheap, ugly and plastik

Talk about beauty and the beast. She’s both. The flood of pornographic spam responding to my Blonde on Bl*nde post has taught me a lesson. There’s no way in hell I’m calling this one Girls with G*ns. I don’t want people searching for something unrelated wandering around Pleisure’s command deck.

Today’s the last day to pick up the duffel-bag’s worth of gifts for subscribo members at Sassy Kitty Designs. Just hit the subo and then grab the goodies on the lawn. You can also stalk the Lucky Boards to win the Diamond Bodysuits, which are perfect for anyone still living in a primitive state of neurotic irresponsibility.

I love Cheap Makeup’s eyeshadows and liners, and I look forward to all the cool things Stella Semaphore will do to my av’s lips. I am also a huge fan of My UglyDorothy’s LB skins, though I deeply regret the weird fetish that the current Yurim boards display for the letters X, Y and Z. It’s like a Sesame Street episode programmed by a HAL 9000.

Credits to creators
Assassin one
dress: Sassy Kitty Designs, Cascade Dress (free to subo members)
coat: Phoenix Rising, Britney London Trench Coat White (25L till October 30)
collar: Plastik, RecluseCollar-Buckled-LeatherBlack
shape: DeLyn, Shape Carmen (TDR)
skin: My Uglydorothy, Luckyskin(Blacktears) (LB)
makeup: Cheap Makeup, Sparkly Shadow Silk #12 (gacha)
hair: I Love Olive, Doris Pearl White
boots: Courtisane, Marie Lu White
socks: Pig, Knee Sock Mit Suspenders White
eyes: HooT, Sunrise Eyes (Starlust)
pose: Olive Juice, James Bond 1 (old hunt gift)

Assassin two
bodysuit: Sassy Kitty Designs, Black Bodysuit from Diamonds Bodysuits (LB)
jacket: Sassy Kitty Designs, Star Flight Jacket from Shiny Stars outfit (was a hunt gift but may now be on LB or MM)
skin: My Uglydorothy, Luckyskin(White!?) (LB)
makeup: Cheap Makeup, Warhol’s Muse Eyeshadow Baby Blue (gg)
collar: Plastik, RecluseCollar -Feathers-Rela
hair: Raspberry Aristocrat, Jess Hair Black Beauty (Red Seal hunt gift)
eyes: Tacky Star, Satin Button Med Vein 1
poses: Olive Juice, James Bond 1 (old hunt gift); .tea

studio: Gauged, Photo Studio 1

You make sleek kills

I thought I’d sworn off leopard, but this free dress from Morea Style is just too utterly utter. Portia doesn’t have a lot of evening wear because many SL gowns are too fussy, and the skirt prims look like prims, not skirt. A simple column dress in subtle textures is ideal. (When oh when are we all going neo-classical?!) Exile’s new group gift features orangey-yellow lips. As looks go, it’s a tough one to pull off, but a colour-coordinating bird makes it work.

Open your eyes Prudence is Amperlope’s latest shape, one of two she has for sale at The Rumor sim’s Fall Harvest Festival. It’s such a pleasure to find one’s way around a new shape. I figured out right away that Prudence is no lover of avant-garde fashion. This girl’s body is carved to be flaunted in a hot cheetah two-piece from Sn@tch. Even so, that stuffed bunny shouldn’t have copped a feel while we were shooting. It’s always the lamb who wants to lie down with the lion.

Credits to creators
Look one
dress: Morea Style, Gift Exclusive (gg in store)
hair: Exile, Layne/dual choc (old TDR item)
skin: Exile, September Blush Para (with cleavage on tattoo or undershirt layer) (new subo gift)
necklace: Fashionably Dead, Single Feather Necklace
earrings: Mandala, Sinra Earrings/Moss Green [<3!] (Rockin’ Friday item)
bangle: Eclectica, Tortoiseshell Bracelet (part of DSN pack)
eyes: Tacky Star, Satin Button Med Vein 1
bird and pose: Just a Pose, My Fine Feathered Friend

Look two
shape: amperlope, Open Your Eyes Prudence (at the Fall Harvest Festival) (promo copy)
outfit: Sn@tch, Cheetah Corset Set
skin: Imabee, Light Lucy First Sight Love LTbrow (old gg)
hair: Posh, Beat Chocolate (from Hair Fair freebie bag)
shoes: Surf Couture, Nantucket Spectators Black
bracelet: Just You, Ying Yang Black (Fashion Freaks Hunt item)
eyes: HooT, Sunrise Eyes (Starlust)
tat: Tacky Star, Signa Tat (Goat Party pack)
bunny: Curvature, My Bunny Best Friend (freebie single-pose version of multi-pose paybie)

It’s super natural

Full of 10L treats, Natural also stocks a bunch of Lucky Boards dispensing things I couldn’t make heads nor tails of, partly because I don’t speak Japanese. The LB prize pig-in-a-bucket necklace, for instance, which had the acronym AFK in its title. I clicked and clicked and clicked, getting only a resize menu, and then suddenly received a folder containing a large wearable floating pig that holds a big AFK sign. Everything I grabbed at Natural came boxed in a delightful way, much to the chagrin of my inner inventory-counter, which disapproves of keeping even the cutest store-boxes. (Tell me you didn’t keep one of Tiny Bird’s nests!) The mirror worn here is just the box for the two Snow White Hunt gifts inside, one of which involves a coffin and a lot of bunnies (of course).

Sometimes I only want to shoot Portia, but right now I’m on a foreign shapes kick, and I picked up a pack of Bini variations from Mother Goose’s for 50L. Mother Goose’s generous output of Lucky Board and dollarbie items, most of them skins, is astounding. I am always afraid that Milok Hermit is going to go broke supplying the grid with doodled-on, scraped-up, and bandaged teens.

Credits to creators
skin: Mother Goose’s, Lewrence2 LB1 (LB)
shape: Mother Goose’s, Bini ShapE2 (50L set)
hair: Tiny Bird, Jailbird Light Black 1
dress: Slow Kitchen, Old Fashioned Dot Dress Black (gg available till 09.26)
tights: Luce, Forest Tights (gift)
eyes: HooT, Sunrise Eyes
necklace: Natural, Pig AFK (LB)
mirror: Natural, Snow White Hunt gift box
odd kite: DJ, Black Butterfly Dying (MFW gift)

Superbecauseflat

Devoted Pleisure readers may have noticed that some of my recent photos are all detailed and depthy. I have been sneaking off to shoot on the super-computer at work, which reveals the dazzling world of SL as it looks to those with pixel power. I don’t quite like it, and I found myself especially dissatisfied with photos I shot on location yesterday. (I relegated them to Flickr, which you can access via my homepage.) Although I loved the Pink Fuel skin that Portia was wearing, I didn’t like the vividness of the images, even after I had killed most of it by lowering the light. Today’s photos show all the failings of a graphics card made out of straight-pins and cellophane. The water is laid out in strips: pretend it’s collage. And that band above the horizon? Pollution, I’m calling it. And yet I prefer these images, and I prefer the simple, flat—almost under-drawn—hakama that Portia wears here over the fabulous kimono she wore yesterday. (Maybe you do need a peak at that later this week.) The picture here gives me a bit of the aesthetic satisfaction I get from illustrations of Poiret and Patou dresses from the early 20th century. SL can get so very maximalist. I plan to keep keeping things low-key, like a lot of my favourite bloggers.

Not much more to write today, except a word of thanks to all of SL’s creators. I’d also like to thank everyone who has responded to Pleisure by adding me to their links section, or subscribing (3, none of them my mother), or IMing me inworld, or commenting here. It’s feeling less lonely in the Pleisure tree.

Credits to creators
outfit and shoes: Pop Feel Rin, Hakama set Tsubaki Green (freebie) (no longer available)
skin: Imabee, Stem Serene Endless Field Dkbrow (latest gg instore)
hair: Eha, Jean Black (opening gift at Stitch Mall 2 location)
flowers: Kik, Accessory Tsubaki A*gift (at The Circle Project)
fan: DP*yumyum, Uchiwa (dollarbie from the iTuTu Cafe bazaar)
pose one: Croire, Not Heartbreaking from the It’s Casual set (thank you, Emily)*
location: The Plastik

*A link? Yes, if a creator sends me a promo copy, I will link to the shop inworld. I don’t usually do links because I devote a lot of time to shooting and writing, and it tires me right out. Pleisure is rough.

She blinded me with science

Faced with the sight of the happy Daddy Robot and his three sweet sons, the greedy Hunt Girl, who had grown up an orphan, puffed out her cheeks, narrowed her eyes and demanded “More!”

In the twinkling of a photon, the greedy Hunt Girl was transformed into a gorgeous glamazon in a Relentless Couture gown. Unable to call for a taxi with her outdated mobile, she was forced to entertain the advances of the sex-starved Papa robot, who promised to connect her with parts scavenged from Peter, his boring middle child.

Credits to creators
skin: [ep], Dottie (FTLO Science Hunt #48)
boots: Mentine, Ankle Boots 4Red Suede Variations

Look one
top: It’s Cake, Kawaii Frown T-shirt (FTLO Science Hunt Grand Prize)
jeans: It’s Cake, Heart Jeans Blueish (FTLO Science Hunt Grand Prize)
shape: Dead Carrot, [Us Grownups] (FTLO Science Hunt #32)
hair: Liriope, Wing (Treasure Box Hunt prize 53)
pose: my AO

Look two
costume: Relentless Couture, Body Suit Dress (FTLO Science Hunt Grand Prize)
phone: Soap, Brick CellPhone (FTLO Science Hunt gift)
rings: Primalot, Glam Rock Queen Rings (subo gift)
pose: Olive Juice, from the Fall Frills pack

location: Rhed Rhode’s lab (jk; take the taxi in gift #49 #50)

Let’s talk about money

This morning Portia and I had an epic pout because she had nothing to wear. Even a quick peek at my inventory, which hit 20,000 items the other day, will reveal that there is plenty of great stuff in there to wear and to show off in this blog. I soon realized that what was actually bumming me out was having only $148L, not enough to buy something special, not, that is, until Friday when I get paid. Sigh thrash sigh thrash. I put myself on a tight budget for SL, $2,000L a week. Sometimes, incredibly, I have money left over. Other times, I buy a skin and a pair of nice shoes and then decide that my budget is so low that I can afford to buy another $1,000L to tide me over. But not today. Today I told myself Portia would have to lie on the bed I had made.

Compared to RL, in which I cannot afford a pair of shoes that even remotely approaches the beauty (or height) of SLink’s Aveela or Maitreya’s Allure, SL is dirt cheap. And chock full of delightful freebies from creators who are, I imagine, inspired to make and to share, but also required to participate in this type of promotion as the price of doing business. (/me sends out giant ball of awe and gratitude to creators.) For someone like me, who hates stuff and is genuinely alarmed by the amount of garbage human beings are generating, the possibility of owning beautiful things that don’t take up space and won’t litter the globe is a dream come true. So why do I limit myself to a weekly budget of about half the price of a movie ticket? And why do I do it when I live in a town that only shows movies so mainstream that I rarely see any? I don’t know the answer to these questions. I estimate that a hundred experiential and psychological factors play into my SL financial decisions. But the dominant feeling of not knowing how much is too much depends in part on the fact that players don’t talk openly about money. I remember that my real life was suddenly much easier to live when someone told me that I should spend a third of my income on rent, unless I wanted to live in a top city, which meant spending closer to half. Where’s that kind of wisdom in SL? And what will it cost me?

Credits to creators
outfit: Nomine, elements from Slip Gown Black (ZombiePopcorn Hunt #59)
necklace: HoD, Fallen Necklace (female and male versions worn)
hair: Kik, Kate03(black) (2000 members subo)
heels: SLink, Aveela Stiletto Herringbone (current TDR Blue item)
bag: LeLutka, No Heart Bag (old gg)
locations: Maven Haus for sulking and Sinners Heaven for skulking

Why do we hunt?

Half-baked though it may be, this is my theory. Gaming is all about attainable goals: there is much satisfaction to be had in getting that freebie or that Fevered Friday Happiness (With a Twist), especially because we live real lives that are infinitely frustrating and largely unsatisfying. Hunting heightens the intensity of the gaming experience because we are seeking an object that we may not succeed in obtaining. Taking that risk makes the satisfaction of finding the hidden gift very sweet indeed. I think we expect a lot from hunt gifts because we have risked privation in a game that provides so many guaranteed pleasures. (Btw, if someone doesn’t tell me soon where Nomine’s ZombiePopcorn dress is hiding I will eat my own brains! And that means fewer blog posts.)

I have to say that, although hunts introduced me to the world of SL fashion, they are not something I relish. If you read this blog with any frequency, you know my computer is a mouse, not a man-eater. And I suspect that Emerald is indeed guilty of failing to rez many objects. I’ve found only four of the nine Platinum Hunt items I sought out. Relogging worked twice. Angrily waving ten dollar bills at my monitor accomplished nothing. Beyond technical difficulties, the widespread coverage of the Platinum Hunt also discouraged me from hunting: nothing seems terribly enticing because everything has been thoroughly exposed. My strategy for blogging for the FTLO…Science Hunt, which starts today, August 22nd, at 4pm, is to be so low-coverage and low-key that you aren’t entirely sure what’s out there…what’s moving stealthily through the wine-dark jungle laboratory (where, erm, the eco-friendly sensor-activated lights are on the fritz).

For more info about the FTLO hunt, visit http://www.wix.com/ForTheLoveOf/FTLO.

Credits to creators
outfit: Tyranny Designs, Hobo-esque in Rags (on sale for 100L)
leather vest: Happy Finds, Sillypup Outfit [modded; it's awesomer with the shoulders] (Project Themeory Aug 21-22)
hair: Magika, Aurora Chocolate
tattoo: Wicked Designs, part of Shanea’s Birthday Package (join group and check notices)
shoes: Chuculet, Nala Pink
flashlight: Sn@tch, New Eden Hallowe’en hunt gift
bow: unknown creator, Double X Wooden Bow [Sheath] (freebie)
set: MC (Spudgy Dean), Night Forrest Skybox (former gift)
gun and flower poses: Olive Juice (The Unknown Hunt gift)