now I know you need the dark just as much as the sun (part four)

(And continuing...from part three...)

[[Note from the Editrix pre-publishing--Em has totally lost the plot and has been sitting on these last two trying to find the pics, so she is now GIVING UP and providing two pics from Radio Free Darkmere's Christmas set at the Slippy Ship.]]



While pondering the sweater-dress selections at LeiMotiv, and listening to Sunday (1994) (Yes, that does seem to be the band's name.)



Pondering yet more winter candy sets from Simply Shelby, and listening to AURORA.

I look so irritated in these last two. Ah, well. Merry Crisis after all.



Might have maybe been getting overtired...



[[And have a couple extra pictures because I was so frustrated that I lost two entire links, I forgot what I was editing for.]]

All I know is, it's been a long, dark night, but hyperfocus--plus egg nog, Firefly episodes, fig-and-pecan topped Brie and coffee--saw us to the dawn. The sun has returned for another year. Happy Solstice.

now I know you need the dark just as much as the sun (part three)

(Continued from part two!)



[[Look it's almost four am in the morning on the 24th because I wanted to get these OUT already and your Editrix is FRIGGING TIRED and somehow your Editrix's non-working brain--that's not even self-deprecation at this point, it is BROKEN and I am having to work around SO MUCH just to stand upright--where the hell was I going with this...Damn it SEE that's what I'm talking about--I THINK this was LeiMotiv but it might have been Fancy Dancer and either way I'm missing BOTH store links AND the oh-so-precious soundtrack mention and AAAAGH! I will find it tomorrow, I swear, but this is Fancy Dancer...or LeiMotiv...or somewhere else GAAAAAAH--]]





While at Pearl Fashion, saw sparkly presents and forgot why I was there (SEEE??), and started running around crystal-hunting. ALYK was playing in the background.



Pondering pretty holiday dining chairs at LouChara while The Hellfreaks play in the background.



While at BlueMoon Enterprises, picking up a festive green silk tea gown, and listening to IMPERIAL AGE. (There are also two padded, painted fabric pumpkin trio freebies out, but I don't know how long they'll be there!)



And I was trying valiantly to restrain myself at LOVE, listening to Paris Paloma.

And we lurch onto part FOUR...because REASONS...

...but before we go, listen: I know I say I love the VaeV items I've blogged, and I do, but--and I'm saying this from the perspective of it being now, when I'm typing this bit, the 25ths, I have been wearing this thing for five days. I have literally changed to six or seven saved avatars, and a couple just piecemeal-making from folders, for five days. It's big, it's heavy, it doesn't work with everything...and I do not care. I love it. I love it so much.

So if you want one of your own? Skip on over to the Warehouse Sale and find the /Vae Victis\ booth.

NOW over to part four!

now I know you need the dark just as much as the sun (part two)

(Continuing from part one.)

So I learned something tonight--the sim Madame Noir is on disallows flight. Not a huge deal, just meant I couldn't take a pic next to Grim's runed monolith. (And yes, I don't care how often Blogger tells me I meant "ruined", no--I meant "runed".)



It was fine, though. I checked the position of the giant spider--thankfully, half a field away--so this was snapped after wandering the sales wall at Madame Noir and listening to CLAN OF XYMOX. (Didn't even know they were still together, but that's a new song! Or new to me, anyway.)



While debating between mirrors at Kiu, and listening to Grace Power.

[[Could not track down the shot I took at Kiu--no idea why. So I just shifted to the first "wintery" avatar I had saved.]]



While buying the string lights at Moon Amore, and listening to Tabitha Raines.

[[Note from Editrix, pre-publication: Could not track down, for the life of me, the picture I took from Moon Amore, either. Maybe I didn't? So, quick-change to something else, flip on the halo, and go. For all that it matters, I was listening to Sub Urban's "Cradles" and Madeline Goldstein's "1996 Expectations" while lining up the shot and then editing it into frame.

[[Oh! And I should also add--this image from Moon Amore features the HUD. I have zero idea if I've shown off all the combinations. There are seven options each for the disk (barely seen in most of these shots, behind my hair). the arch (I believe that's the main portion the blades and spires link to?), the quasi-Gothic architectural star, the spikes on the inner circle that rotate, and the blades (the flat daggers that are seen behind the trio of spires). Then the spires--the typical seven options of the rest, then eight additional jewel tones.

[[If I have any complaint, it's there--I'm not able to change all the parts to vibrant colors. But this is the most minor of quibbles--there are still a dizzying number of combinations!]]



While contemplating if Gearhaven needs a giant severed bunny head at NOMAD, and listening to Snow Wife.



While checking Moonlight Shadow's...uh...forest??..horns?? Those, um...don't look like tree roots...and listening to ILUKA.

And...that brings us to another five pictures, so off to part three!

now I know you need the dark just as much as the sun (part one)

There is a touch of sadness this Solstice. Casey Chaos has passed away at the age of 59.

I don't know if that's going to ring bells for anyone. I can tell you one of my favorite songs of his last band, AMEN, was "California's Bleeding". And wandering around YouTube after I heard, I found this lovely compilation video--not just Chaos fronting for SCUM, but also a clip of Kerrang's Hall of Fame awards celebration, which had Chaos introducing the recipient that year, Iggy Pop. Dear gods, that was seventeen years ago...

So, while I'm in the middle of figuring out how I want to blog six or seven previous /Vae Victis\ products, and realizing that since Grim made the "Krampusnacht" Caged bell for MadPea's Advent calendar (that was...day fourteen? I think?), he drops yet another thing coming up for the Warehouse Sale.



But hey, guess what I found at Belle Epoque for the Saturday Sale? Janire holding the Krampusnacht Bell from MadPea's Advent calendar. (I think they were day 14? That's another thing I haven't unpacked yet...)

To wit: The "Elohim" Bladed Halo.

So, what the hell, I took it shopping.



While listening to Sub Urban and pondering the sales wall at Candy Kitten.



While checking to see if I had the hairs on sale at Doe and listening to Jax.



While perusing the sales wall of .epoch.--dangerous, dangerous store--and listening to Lilith Max.



While trying to decide between the goth elf and the pine elf at Kiu, and listening [[I am wrong! Leaving the picture as is, but that was actually Atelier, not Kiu! I blame the hazy blur of Solstice-ing, but I do apologize.]]
>br /> And since I took a lot of pictures, we'll move on to part two!

and the engine's failed again, all limits of disguise

It's October already, and no haunts have been visited in September. At all. I have no explanation. Also a lack of updating, there's that. To the point that I might have to reintroduce myself to anyone reading along.

So, hi, I'm dy--I mean, I'm increasingly impair--I meant to say, hi, I'm locked in a pitched battle with my goddamn neurologis--

Errr. Let's try again. I'm Em. Hi. The rest is flavor text.

Aaaaaanyway...I had decided to do something potentially ill-advised, namely--the 21 in 31 Challenge. Now, there are existing 31 Days of Horror challenges. I know that. This felt more my speed, though.

For example, here's HordesofHorror's list:



She's following down her curated list, and even managed an explanation for each one. And I've seen both "You have to make your list on day one and stick to it!" and "Pick a movie a day you haven't seen!" camps for the usual 31 Days Challenges. I planned to fall in the middle of the road: I wasn't making a list beforehand, but I would watch each film all the way down. No five-minute "this is too terrible to continue watching" waffling.

And I'd do my best to pick things I haven't seen.

And then...several days more went by, and...here we are. So we're starting with "The Last Ghost Hunters", filmed in 2021, currently on Tubi--because it may be the only one I have energy to cover. Their capsule description says:

"Terror is about to break loose when a team of ghost hunters get hired to explore a vacant country house where several people have disappeared forever."

Okay then!



Now, I could have sworn the house used in this film was one I'd seen before, and my mind was saying Black Mirror. I checked, but as far as I can tell, it's not that. Maybe it's just similar to a lot of other houses I've seen, that were built in the same era.



So first off the bat: they do the best they can. I think all the actors did the very best they could, trapped between poorly-green-screened ghosts and the Big Evil of the piece...essentially some dude in a gas mask. There was a lot of gritting my teeth to get through the runtime.



And I'm not great at giving reviews without spoilers, so let me tell you this was the best shot I could get of the green screen, and even here, it's pretty bad. Add in special effects--smoke, fog, fire, ACTORS MOVING, whatever--and the believability sinks like a flan in a cupboard. I'm not sure, had it not been a challenge, I would have bothered to finish it, frankly.

Adding in to the "not bothering" camp: I saw Platform 2 had arrived, so I figured, I should probably try to finish the first one...and I made it twenty minutes farther in and stopped. Nope. Just couldn't do it.

Same thing with Terrifier--I liked the original anthology film that spawned Art the Clown, but not so much his segment of it. Then the first Terrifier film came out, and I tried to get through it, and...Look. I don't mind slashers. I don't mind gore. But I do have to have some greater sense of character than "woke up this morning and decided to saw into people". I don't need much of a why past that, but I do need at least that.

I even figured, hey, if I'm lost, I'll go back, but let's jump directly to Terrifier 2, since Terrifier 3 had just dropped.

Big huge nope. I just don't like the character. And this is likely the year that cements not wanting to push my brain, because...it's dealing with enough.

Is it Halloween yet?

got some feeling coming back

Well, this is going to give me nightmares. (Seriously, this is disturbing content. Not nudity, per se,, and not gore or violence, really...It's just skin-crawling, disturbing AI images. Be *warned*.)

Also, uh, hi again. I have about ten drafts waiting to be finished, that I planned to finish, and then the days ganged up on me again. Bah. If anything's not time-critical, I'll do my best to backdate, but only by a few days, not the month before, or the month before that--when I was supposed to pull my act together and toss them in as entries.

Anyway, soooo.....currently I'm at Harvest of Souls, which I still think of as a "newer" event? My brain thinks it started after SABBATH--or Ritual--but definitely not past Salem or...bah, what's the other name...I know it's not Trick or Treat Lane, because they've been around FOREEEVERRR...Gods, October's going to suck this year, EVERY event is planning on opening, it seems...



"You may ask yourself, 'Well, how did I get here?'"

Though that's not really my main question. I'm actually trying to avoid the main question, which circles around between "I haven't updated since WHEN?!?" and "If I'm going to stand around in world, by myself, for six hour stretches of time while I'm distracted to the point of getting nothing done in RL, either...am I really needed in world?" That one...I'm going to have to deal with at some point.

At some point. But not today.



"Little fish, big fish, swimming in the water..."

Today I'm at the event. I may do an entirely separate entry just walking around and capturing really fun landscaping. But I do look like I dressed for the booth, weirdly, and I hadn't seen it before porting to the event. What's actually in the booth, for sale, is /Vae Victis\' "Cernunnos" Monarch Antlers. It's now entirely redone mesh, all original work by Grimoire Hexem, and I'll get around to reviewing that hopefully soon!

[[Insert from the Editrix, sadly AFTER publishing--I am a complete FAILURE, I have forgotten how Vae Victis is spelled, oh, the horror and tragedy--but, err, the names have been fixed. My deepest apologies. When I'm more awake--the Editrixing is taking place late at night and one day forward...as is tradition...I'll check the keywords on other entries.]]

This is not going to be my usual exhaustive review. also. I know there are three places to change the color scheme, the jar itself, the trim along the jar edges, and the edges of the crack that the souls are trying, so very hard, to break through. Each can be tinted fourteen different tones, though I fully acknowledge that the booth's red light (along with the red facelight I'd forgotten I had on), means you're not getting that good a look at the options.



"I have my scars, you have yours..."

And, of course, we're only mentioning tangentially that having a migraine for a day and a half may have impaired some of my ability to brain and take pictures. Still. (This is not me asking for sympathy, either. My brain and I are not on speaking terms at the moment--it knows what it did--but that doesn't mean I'm trying to add stress and worry to anyone's plate. Yes, the Eternal Headache is still there, and why yes, the migraine was laying over it--but it doesn't matter. The headache is just that--mine.)



"Walk on water through the swamp..."

I can't even say for certain which color combos I used. My notes were scattershot. I did say this:

"The jar I'm holding, by the way, is one of the hunt prizes. Fourteen colors for the jar, fourteen for the trim, and fourteen for the broken edge that reveals trapped souls yearning to be free. Broken things can be very pretty, and this is, oh, so very pretty."

So yes, that's worth a mention. The Harvest of Souls event is having a scavenger hunt, of sorts. It requires a hud and tracking down and getting information from the residents of Hallow's End, where the Harvest of Souls can be found. Don't worry, there's only five town residents you need to talk to, and the hunt HUD is free, so why not take your chance to get hunt pretties? Including the soul jar.



"But what would you say if you were given one chance to say it?"

I remember this color set, though. This was me playing solely with hot pink and teal. Those are the vaporwave settings, apparently. And if you hadn't noticed (because I'm now noticing that in the pics, it's a bit hard to tell), this is another hand-held floaty thing. I have a soft spot for floaty things in general, and hand-held floating things specifically. So I'm overjoyed that it's their hunt prize.



"There's a red horse pawing at the door, in the hurricane of hands that I've ignored..."

So, that's the pitch. You want to see cool, innovative designs from some very cool, innovative designers? This is one of the places I'd suggest. Sure, I plan to go to Trick or Treat Lane when it opens, and of course I'm going to meander through the available October hunts...but I really liked the feel of this place. It's not "Boo, I'm a ghost, gotcha!" moments, it's not tons of blood and gore--it's, dare I say this, subtle. And comforting.



"Swallowing such sweet sorrow down..."

No, wait, I did forget one thing! Arkhive's back! Yes, Mesmer Macabre's personal brand has resurfaced, and this one hasn't gone to the bloggers yet, so I may have to count pennies. (It might not be sent my way anyway, because when Arkhive closed up, I left the group.) Either way, it is a lovely, lovely thing and I wannnts it. L$450 currently at the Harvest of Souls; likely more if you wait until it hits the mainstore!

And did I mention the antlers from /Vae Victus\ are L$500 at the event? Well, expect that in a future entry. I can say that Arkhive's spiffy staff will work with the spiffy staff AO from /Vae Victus\. Synchronicity is nice.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a river calling. If I catch a fallen autumn leaf, can I ride it all the way to Gearhaven? Let's find out!

I've got a three day headache and it's all in my head

It's the 30th of March. One day before Ostara. And there's been a lot of...well.



Conversations like the one below.

[18:43] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr) hugs you
[18:44] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): I was just starting to pack things up for dinner. Though I don't know if I'm going to be in tonight--the pain of head and the head pain and did I mention the head? It's kind of distracting.

Which was followed soon by:

[18:43] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr) smiles, tilting up her face for a kiss. Dinner's dragging its feet--or, well, his or her feet, depending on driver. I was going to go check on progress.
[18:46] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr) will see how she feels, she may be taking the night off. The head is...bad. I feel like I should tuck a "Bridge out" sign behind one ear.

Yeah. It's been...it's been a day.


All of it, all the mysterious fatigue, the odd tremors, the patches of growing nerve damage...the headache that occasionally tries to kill me for funsies...it doesn't look great.

Though, I should say, anyone new pops up with a diagnosis of somatoform disorder, I'm just going to full-scale bite people.



At SOME POINT, which I'm hoping is today, but may need to be tomorrow--I'm putting out the rabbit monster from Ever Green. Even if it stays out after Ostara, because damn it, I bought it to put out, I AM GOING TO PUT IT OUT.

And...then decide on the rest of the night.

Time for Em to faw down again, maybe.



No, not really.


(And why yes, Noah Finnce's "3 Day Headache" was the song playing...very, very, *very* low as the background for writing this. Why do you ask?"

there's such a fooled heart beatin' so fast

We finally have an answer for what happened February 1st. Does explain several things--and why so many systems seemed to break at once.

So far, February has been...difficult. It has also been, additionally, not the best week. This may be taken as fantastical hyperbole, but there have been times when I have made my way to that far table, and sat across from death...and I have always, always walked away again. The last serious time was December; this week's bidding fair to be another. But I endure still. If nothing else, I am stubborn.

Changing topics a tad, today I went to CHAOTIC to get one of their newest releases--a casual cropped sweater-and-long-trousers set named Brynlee running for L$99 a color (but not black, you'd think black would be a natural, but...apparently not). After that I remembered there was a group gift from /Vae Victis\ I wanted to cover.



Out of the box it's so pretty--amazing anatomical detail, acanthus leaves as scarified scrollwork across the surface, and a small shattered place within storing...something else.



A little hue change, and what I thought was going to be the black and blue, but--apparently I forgot to hit 'Save' when I was moving through locations on the sim. Bother. So it's now showing off the black and red. Also demonstrated: one can, it appears, sit down whilst holding the heart--most of the heart's animations don't interfere with the body's animation.



It occurs to me I haven't mentioned the thing's name. It does have one, namely the "Eternal Vow" Broken Heart, which is the 2000 group members gift (thus, only available if you join the group), from /Vae Victis\. Did any of us ever think /Vae Victis\ would come so far? Probably not--even I hoped, but braced for disappointment. This is far from a disappointment.

(Though I should also mention it was not doubt in the designer at all--just the world's cruelty to artists in general.)

Either way, this is it in the brass/gold metal, with an amber-yellow cracked section--which I think is picking up the sky tones to look closer to rose, from yellow?

(And if you can't tell from the different poses, the heart has a floating pattern, long enough that it can seem somewhat random as an accessory. It never completely touches the hand, or at least it never completely touched mine, but it does come close!)



And in the traditional pink, with aetherium purple heart window. I also picked up some hot cider, because it's still snowy here!



And the heart in gleaming silver with a glittering white center, and the HUD.

There are seven colors for the heart itself, and seven slightly different tones for the broken section, and it's a lovely tribute to growth, and endurance. (As well as, I suspect, going well with the earlier released set of the 'Tell-Tale Heart' Relic, which was part of the Love Bites hunt in 2022, and is now possibly in the main store?)

And, as an aside, Arkivet's 'Anesidora' Keybound Halo that I covered earlier is now available for purchase at the Abnormality event, which just opened today, so--it may be a while before you can drop by to grab it. But when you can, here's the direct link to Arkivet's booth. It's going for L$300, which is a steal for that level of detail.

(And if you're after the Pandora Blood-Letting dagger from /Vae Victis\, I'll be showing that off tomorrow! That is also at Abnormality, here on the lower level, and I forgot to grab the price so I'll do that tomorrow as well!

[Bit of a late insert from the Editrix: thought I should toss in some credits since I am wearing some new things:

"Eternal Vow" broken heart from /Vae Victis\ (remember, ONLY available by joining the group!)
"Brynlee" top/pants combo in Light Red from Chaotic
"Sienna" long hair from Magika
Shot in Ethereal City

Sky: "outdoor city weirdlights" from [AnaLu] (I think the business itself is gone, but it should be standard in the Settings folder)

I'll paint you mornings of gold

A great deal of inference comes into play in virtual world interaction, and even in games with 3D NPC figures. Because they do not often show facial expression, or, if they do, it's either Uncanny Valley turf or not...quite...synched up with what's being said...a lot of what we go on are things our minds are thinking--how we think they sound, or how we think they look, or what emotion we think they're portraying.

That being said...



...there's a certain deer-in-the-headlights look I'm developing, and I can't decide if that's me reading into...well, me, or--genuinely what's happening with the way I'm choosing my avatar to pose, dress, behave...



Anyway, /Vae Victis\ is participating in the next Madpea hunt, "Cupid Catastrophe". This is a grid-wide hunt with a specific time limit--fifteen days, from the first of February to the fifteenth, with an interesting angle. The more hunt objects a hunter finds, the more "MadPoints" and prizes that hunter gets at the end.

As with other recent Madpea hunts, it's HUD-based--the basic "Cupid Chaser" gets a hunter the hunt HUD, and a "Fool's Flyswatter"--the better to flatten Cupids and hearts with, I guess?--while the "Cupid Conqueror" package gets the HUD, the Flyswatter, whatever "The Dominator 2020" item is, the "Heart Mobile" (I'm assuming car, not hanging thing) and the "Cupid Catastrophe" outfits.



And this is the "Eros" Gemmed Crown Halo that Grim made for the event, and this thing is GORGEOUS. I know, I know, I say that about a lot of accessories, but...this one really is. I have this Valentine's picture idea in my head now, for a skin I haven't worn often--the Elemental Golden Dust Diamond for 2018's Fallen God and Goddess contest from Fallen Gods. That could be really stellar.



I may post another run in that skin, even, if it comes out well. As an entry or on the Flickr.

And I'm thinking the lost-deer effect may not be what I'm putting out, in SL, but what I'm bringing in. There are days that are more...mass confused flailing? Than others?



So, remember what I said about this piece being gorgeous? This is it from the back, and this is the first headgear I've seen from /Vae Victis\ that had this kind of backing. What I mean by that is, I'm used to the front patterning--in this case, the horn strata of antlers--matching to the back, and...not here. Here, it's backed with the smooth, slightly rounded look one gets when metal accessories are hand-poured. Complete with the stamp detail that makers often press into still-cooling metal pieces. I am sheerly amazed.



All in all, this is a lovely piece, elegant and sweeping, and while there will be a slight charge, it's the charge of the game HUD from Madpea, not a charge for the piece itself.

[[Insert from the Editrix before posting: this was shot in the photo studio warehouse in Whispers Families, and I completely forgot to show the HUD. So I had to take one last shot, below, to show that off!]]



[[And there you go! Simple selections, but as shown here, highly variable. Good luck in the finding!]]

they say you can't go home again, it's true, especially when your home burns down around you

I don't know why I'm not letting go of the holidays this year. My playlist is still carols and solstice favorites, and our wee frosted tree festooned with musical instruments is still up. Got me, why, it's just a comfort, and these days, I go with those.



Today I'm at the Temple of Sound in Riki, to show you another group gift from /Vae Victis\, this time the "Marbas" Beast Pelt boa.

Straight out of the box, no adjustments, no tinting, and it's a perfect fit. Which is honestly impressive, because Grim's nineteen feet tall. I figured at the least it would be ankle-length.



There are eleven shades total--as is tradition, there's a capture of the HUD later--and I don't know if I can do them justice. I do know I want that floating house behind me.



I had never gone downstairs at the Temple, so...I decided to find out what was there. There's a pool there! And a nice bench to rest upon. And just enough shadow to drape around the deep crimson fur.



Maybe I'm not the only one clinging to holiday feelings--Persephone Phoenix, the owner and operator of the Temple of Sound, and the ski slope behind it, has scattered several holiday trees around her property. Each of them have some cats, open to all. (She had them under request for two per person, but of late I think she just wants them carted off, so she's lifted that restriction!) Some are actual freebies, priced at L$0; some are slightly fancier breeds at L$200, which is still a deal; one or two are marked at L$1000 (usually those are the really BIG cats).

There are some that are not priced at all, and I see this partially as her just missing a few, because she had a LOT of cats out, as well as a minor contemplation moment on wanting the unattainable. Either way, you could probably drop her a line and ask about specific ones and see what she'd like them priced at.

I thought the brilliant emerald would go with the tree best.



And of course I'm not going to ignore the traditional pink shades! I actually considered leaving this one out, because it clips through the couch and I didn't feel like that much editing? But then I thought again, because clipping is a part of life in SL, and this was the only time I actually noticed it happening!



And that was that, and now it's time to reconsider what we're putting inside Steam towers, now that they're remaining for a while! Definitely the small bar I found, absolutely, but should the Cthulhu drinks go out again? Because the table goes very well with the place--it's a giant gear, with a friendly brass octopus topper--but that means the table will be out, and people will drink from the server...and we'll have people dropping dead all over again. Such a bother.

Oh--did I mention? You can't buy this at the mainstore, but you can get it at the main store for joining the group. It's glorious enough to go for L$500, but no, just the small bookkeeping fee for group joining (I think it's L$10 at present?). Do go see.

{{Brief comment one day after posting from the Editrix: yes, I did notice here and there the fur clipping through my bosom. But nearly everything I own clips through my bosom. It's a hazard I've accustomed m'self to.}}