Where I’m At

Wow, it has been a long time. Covid has been and (mostly) gone, and much has changed in my Second Life since 2020.

I am still busy, more so than ever, really. To begin with, Grevile Oh, the Prince of Chiaroscuro, passed away in October 2021, leaving the regions without an owner and without any means of payment. We managed to hang on for a few months but inevitably the regions closed. The community lives on, with the help of a friend who is letting us have some cheap land with a very flexible prim allowance; not a full region but a parcel big enough for our needs. The Saturday parties still continue, 2pm every week.

We also lost Eth Tedeschi, one of our DJs, who passed away a year later, which left us with only Bailey as our sole DJ. So I rather urgently learned how to do it myself, (thanks, Youtube) so now it’s Bailey and I who alternate each week. I am really enjoying it; putting together a themed playlist is as much fun, if not more so, than putting together a themed costume. I’m also co-ordinating all the events, hosting when I’m not DJing, (actually when I’m DJing I’m doing both) and building the sets, many of which are in unique skyboxes, frequently inspired by the ones we originally had on Chiaroscuro.

But the Spirit of Chiaroscuro lives on, you can find us now here: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Badger/98/171/113

My avatar has also changed a great deal over the past two and a half years. The biggest change is, yeah those two big puppies.

It’s funny how the change over time has mimicked a RL transition from male to female. It’s taken aout the same amount of time and has been a gradual process. I no longer exclusively use the Maitreya body, I’m using it about half the time, with most of the other half in Reborn, and occasionally Freya or Erika. I love Reborn but it still lacks any kind of fantasy or historical clothing. I’ve also switched heads (about half a dozen times) – I stayed in Catwa Queen for a good while, but recently took the EVO-X plunge and went with Lelutka Inez, which I think looks more like my original Justin male head than any I’ve seen since.

Despite appearances to the contrary, I still think of myself as genderqueer and male-leaning; you’ll often see me with facial hair and rarely with makeup except when it’s part of a costume. I don’t think of myself as a trans woman, shemale or anything of the sort. I’m not a “chick with a dick”, I’m a “dude with boobs”.

I’m currently not living in Bellisseria; I decided that I needed to curtail my expenses and for now I’m on mainland only, split between a parcel I bought for livng in, and the one I’m renting for Chiaroscuro. I’ve also kinda got bored of Belli houses; I went through all of the themes, finishing with Victorian which was the last one I hadn’t really tried before. When I let it go, I browsed the land page and there wasn’t any that really inspired me to roll again, so I think for now I’ll stay out in the sticks. If I change my mind later, it might be worth bumping my alt up to Premium instead of raising my own tier.

So that’s it, in a nutshell. I came back because I needed an external page on which to publish the Bonniebots post, but now I’m here I may as well use this again.

Mother of Dragons

I’m happy to report that I am fully recovered from the virus; symptoms lasted just four days and I am cleared to return to work tomorrow; I work in a critical industry (though possibly not a critical department) so for now I am returning to work tomorrow, but who knows what the situation may be next week.

Meanwhile, Grev gifted me this fabulously sexy outfit from Folly; it’s called Mother of Dragons, so I just had to take one of my scaly pets out for a stroll around Chiaroscuro.

You might notice that I appear to have two hands; the reason for this somewhat long-winded. A couple of weeks ago I won the Atena mesh body from Lucybody in their Midnight Mania (It’s still there, btw, so if you fancy it, head on over). Whilst I was in the store I noticed that they also have two flat-chested bodies, so I demoed those too.

Natasha is a completely flat-chested body most closely resembling the V-Tech, but Vania is a little different; she has very slight breasts, still basically flat but kind of puffy and looking like they are just “growing”. There didn’t seem much point buying one that was basically the same as what I already have, so Vania is the one I bought, and it’s what I am wearing in the pics above. Like Atena and Natasha, it fits Maitreya clothes and Slink shoes; it also fits some clothes made for V-Tech, although in most cases I have to alpha out the nipples. It’s BOM only and relies on system layers as there’s no alpha hud at all.

And therein lies the rub. While the body is close enough to Maitreya that my DK mod for my arm will fit, there is no way to alpha out only one arm on this body. I could be missing both arms, or neither, but it’s not possible to be missing only one. So I am torn now, and still undecided which way I’m going to go. I really love the shape of the Vania body, and it’s a significantly lower complexity when you factor in the Maitreya/V-Tech combination. Having two complete arms is just weird, but I really don’t wanna lose the other one as well.

Funny how something so new has the same old drawbacks from years ago.

There was one other drawback too; there is hardly any nail polish available for Lucybody. However, I also picked up the developer kit and have taught myself to make nail polish appliers, so I am busy churning those out in a variety of colours as and when I need them. I’ve already got two packs up for sale in my store, but more will follow.

So it looks like my avatar is transitioning. How ironic.

Latex at Chiaroscuro

Yesterday’s party at Chiaroscuro was “Leather and Latex”. They’ve done this one before; last time was about a year ago, and I looked rather different then;

Leatherman

This year I opted for latex instead of leather, and rummaged my inventory to find something a bit different. Well, very different actually.

Kinky Boots

The outfit (kilt and strap top) is from Stars Fashion (no longer available), the cybernetic arms are from Wicca’s Wardrobe, and the boots (which all the ladies present were very admiring of) are from KC. I adore these boots too.

A little bit goth

I went for a goth look with a dollarbie skin from Swallow, which I love but rarely wear because the makeup is baked-in. Lipstick is from the Babygoth set by Alaskametro and the tattoo is from Psychostore (just L$10); of all the tattoos I own, and I own a lot, this one is by far my favourite. Hair is again Saga by Magika (see previous post). The ears are a fullperm set from Meli Imako, with my own texture. Yes, I know Noldor elves don’t have ears like that, but I like people to actually know I’m an elf.

And I won the costume contest (again!). The DJ was Eth Tedeschi, who not only spins the disks, he also plays piano and sings beautifully. I swear, his voice gets better and better.