I'm in the ruins too, I know the wreckage so well (part one)

Okay.

Okay. Okay okay okay.

This needs to get done and the past two months in tailspin DO NOT COUNT. Okay? Okay.

I'm saying that a lot.

This also may run for more than two entries.



Also, I want to put a pin in this one to revisit later, because I forgot I tinted a pair orange and then took a bunch of shots in blue latex. Keep this on the back burner for now.

Also this one (from the same set in blue):



I know the image quality is bad, but just--put a pin in this for later, too? Because I did find a problem on the horns! (It's me. The problem is me. Not even kidding, because I fractured another mesh item from an entirely different maker in the same way yesterday.)

So. The first set was the blue and gold, and I took a bunch, and then--forgot where I put them? So next up was a few days later, and the image below is straight out of the box:



No modding, as-is standard (non-PBR; there are both PBR and non-PBR textured versions in the package), just picked one and hit add.

And then....things get a little...vague? I have about twelve pictures, in assorted outfits uploaded to my image host, and maybe six different half-completed entries? But I know I took a few shots while shopping at Moss and Luna:



...and I think that's either the PBR version (maybe?? PBR is strange for me, it works, but it's always weirdly highlighted in a pale, milky-blue shine??), or I've done something weird to them. Because of course I would.

So then I went through the pics I'd uploaded two months back. Like this one:



--which shows the HUD for the set. (And yes, there are two versions, the PBR HUD, and the standard HUD.) Near as I can tell, this is also straight out of the box, very little if any adjusting.

I'll go into some features in part two, which I'm hoping to get out tomorrow? In the meantime, I kept feeling like I needed to retake pictures, or take more pictures, or find the...I suppose "perfect" background...I don't know.



Maybe it makes no sense. And I wanted to say more. There's more pictures. Void stars, I have more than enough frames. This run of--unfortunately, only three--I only caught the mistake in post-processing--I thought I'd moved the horns back enough to not protrude, but instead, I gave myself a second set of eyebrows.

Anyway. There's more. Also, watching Pontypool while trying to figure out what to say to type this? Maybe not my best choice.

((Insert from the Editrix: I'm going to go post this as the first entry in coverage of, but the entry I'm going to post after was actually written weeks ago, and I just want to get SOMETHING out today because kicking myself in the back for the last two, possibly two-plus months, is starting to leave a dent.))



((Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.))

((Oh, and you can still find them on the back wall at Vae Victis' main store. Set you back by L$500, still, I believe, which again, is a reasonable amount for horns this adaptable. Ta!))

I'm in the ruins too, I know the wreckage so well (part two)

((The aforementioned entry from before yesterday's. Probably going to cover some of the same ground. All right, carry on.))

[[HOOOOOLLLD EVERYTHING! This was one of the drafts I put together back in...August?? Hard to tell, because it's listed NOW as October 11th. Go figure!! So, THIS was technically written BEFORE. Okay? Everyone caught up? Yay.]]



Oh no. Background alpha. Okay, hold a tic...

So, straight out of the box, the "Lucent" Ribboned horns, in Standard. Biiiig antlers.

Don't get me wrong, they're impressive as they are, but they feel like my skull would cave in. So, a little bit of Y, a little bit of overall shrinkage...



Ah. Okay, that's....wait. The eyebrows have gone weird...



NOT EYEBROWS. I'm dim. That's the protruding bone ridge in front. Wild.



(This is also called, the backgrounds will shift back and forth because Em Cannot Decide Things...)

This isn't going to be my usual deep dive--I'll get a good capture of the HUD, because there are a LOT of options--because this is only half the set. There's also a PBR version.



And same thing, right out of the box, save for that odd, pearlescent coloration that--at least for me--looks the same on EVERYTHING that's PBR.

Find then on the wall here for L$500!

I go fall down nao.

but the railroad track will bring me back when the lonesome whistle cries

[[Insert, belatedly, from the Editrix: I'm getting there.]]



I TOLD myself, I was not going to leave without blogging SOMETHING, because dear gods...February?! Was the last time I did??

Ignoring the eight unposted drafts, I may post them, I may not, they weren't "official"... whatevers...

Then THREE DAYS WENT BY...



So I told myself I was going to run all the shots so I could work on it offline! And...I spent the next two days largely unconscious. I....I Hate. This. Brain thing. SO much.

But okay. Okay okay fine, it's only been nearly a week, I'm still on...some kind...of track...and now I have pictures!

.........

And from two to now (7:26 pm PST), I have just been editing pictures. And they're calling me off for dinner.

I....I Hate. This. Brain thing. SO. Much.



HEY GUESS HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO FIX THE BLOG GUYS
GIVE ANOTHER TWO WEEKS *AT LEAST* TO FIGURING OUT THIS IMAGE WAS MISSING
DID I MENTION I HATE MY BRAIN RIGHT NOW?!

So expect a full review. Soon. At, uh...some point.



Also I really need to figure out what to do with the now four staggered half-complete builds floating over Cardew that were meant to be a new store....

AND THE BLOG CODE IS STILL BROKEN....

It...it...yeah. I'll get there. At some point.

took my breath away, knocked me flat on my back

Emotions get heavy from time to time. Our fears, our worries, general anxieties over our situations, our relationships, employment, the world...It can take a toll not just on us, but on those that care for us. That heavy weight, dragging down everything we do...

Welcome to the Vineyard Terrace.



This is not going to be the typical review (I mean, do I give typical reviews? But I digress); even so, the "Typhon" horns have earned their descriptives--they are very adorned, and they are monstrously oversized.



Straight out of the box, unmodified in any way, they barely fit me. This is not to say only men can wear them--anyone can, if they're drawn to these. After all, find a way, or make one--so make sure yours are modifiable.

Everything Vae Victis sells is, after all. But it does present a challenge--because they have crystal gems depending from rope drops, so that seems to point in a direction for 'gravity'. And yes, this is SL, there is no gravity when not dealing with physical prims, but even there, it's just programming that causes the drop.



Apparently, some of the information boards will give notecards! That's a nifty feature.

I mean...you know, I really had a point when I started out on this. The heavy weight of emotions, of hearts, of even unattached things, because things have their own unique dragging weight (as anyone who still has a storage room filled with boxes well knows). But...

I mean, the information boards. Solid info on swamps, and swamp ecosystems, how they act as water filtration, trapping many chemicals and metals before the water runs clean again...and they had another feature, which I may return to and make another entry--because as I walked past, the info boards rezzed into visibility. I clicked for the card, read through it, and moved on down the path...and the board faded back into invisibility.

As I said, very nifty feature.

And as it turns out, I thought this dark navy was a dark green, for the current avatar tones--but, hey, navy still works.



Before the third picture, by the way, I reduced the horns down by -20. They are still huge, but I think they fit a bit better. (On me, mind.) But I should also point out something else--the colors are...not the expected ones, let's say, on the tinting HUD.

Some are the colors we expect--smooth, even tones layered over the mesh. Some...arent', showing up as ombre tones, or lightly burned tones, or something else entirely from what we've come to expect. This is not at all a complaint--far from it. There's so many color variations to play with.



I am loving PBR Materials, while we're shooting through the window of this little swamp shack--the patterns you see on the inside of the metal bars? Those move when the light source changes--so, clouds drifting by, birds passing between the 'sun' obscure in their own way...



Neat, innit?

[[Yeah, no, I was WAY off on this one. PBR hadn't been implemented yet, this was just Advanced Materials lighting. That's my bad. Still cool, but PBR is an entirely different animal.]]



And say hi to the trio of HUDs for all the options. With a codicil (which, rats, I forgot to show): the slide panel on the bottom of the far-right HUD. That one controls, if I'm remembering correctly, the settings around each gem, the cuffs, the metal accents that link up the ropes--then, simply click that little sliding buckle, and there you are with all the settings for the gems.

(I freely admit, I didn't take the most careful notes. I was too enchanted wandering the sim, so my initial mordant reflection on trials and tribulations never had a chance. I had forgotten how...it's going to sound odd, but...serene swampland is. And this sim may do the best job of capturing it in SL--the slow lap of water against piers, the brief splash of a fish (or a gator, depending) farther from shore. The little chorus of tree peepers calling out to each other through the brack.)

The one thing I do know is you should check out the picture of Grim wearing them. And looking perfectly unbowed. You can find them in the /Vae Victis\ booth at Abnormality's current round. I'll update this when I traipse over at my next opportunity!

[[As I'm putting this together to publish, something about the structure of the horns, the bases, with the planes of Grim's skull...likely nothing but a fancy, but--that reminded me pwerfully of Lord Darkness, from 1985's Legend. So, y'know, if anyone feels like striding out on human--skull sized hooves to seduce a lady into killing a unicorn...These may be your horns.]]

she was the last one in this town we would've thought would snap

Wait, SABBATH is open today? So the horns set from /Vae Victis\ is live?

And the two-day migraine having (with any luck) not surfaced for day three...it might be a good time for some honkin' heavy horns.

So, I'm currently standing in the Ancient Ruins of Emerald Bay...where it seems to be raining.



Straight out of the box, these are quite lorge (at least on me). Perfect minotaur horns, otherwise.

So let's muck with them a bit.



Hit the wrong thing first--MIN SIZE--don't do that, btw, it was HELL prying them out of my hair--but we're now at my favored forward tilt and about -30 on the size. That's better.

Basic color-tone reversal--pewter instead of gold cuffs, gold instead of black horns, still goes with the outfit and the avatar.

Amusingly, I've only worn this form twice before--once when I was following my errant daughter through a rift in reality, and once when I got shunted through the hull of a spaceship when we hit a patch of drifting aetherium meteorites. Marble not needing to breathe much, you ken. Or at all...



There are ten shades for the horns--this is showing the red--and ten shades for the cuffs (which can also be removed with a click), this one being the white.



There's a very interesting green on this set--it's not the usual bright lime or dark-toned forest shade. This is more of a gentle fern. I'm showing it with the blue-turqoise cuffs.



There's a heathered pumpkin orange on the HUD, too. I paired it with the purple for the cuffs here.



What's visible from the front matches from the back--but it's still some lovely texture work. This time it's blue horns to match pink metal cuffs.



For the last shot I couldn't really fit both HUD and horns in the lotus frame...which, honestly, is fine, because that thing was bugging me trying to carve out the petals. So, HUD with the color options, and cuffs on or off, included with the price of purchase!

You'll find these at the newly opened SABBATH, at /Vae Victis\' booth (linked above), for L$400. If nothing else, it's a lovely layout to wander.

A bit of housekeeping. From here, things are going to get briefly uneven. Not that they haven't been, to date, but our beloved Void Mother Mesmer has decided to fold her brand up, and work with her partner Grim. Which is good, because we were keeping her either way.

But it does mean that my brand dealing with Arkivet has come to an end. And, much as I want to support some of the friend brands that have set up shop on Eldritch, it...honestly may be better for me to pace to one brand's releases. At least until we figure out the medical whys beyond the screen.

Then it's Vae loveliness all the way!

raveling softly while you speak in time

Whoa. Okay, Arkivet, this is gonna take a little work...and relocating.

And...then I got pulled to Dahlia house, for the Monday noon unboxing. I was planning to go to Frostweald, at Fantasy Faire, but...this will work too.



So, welcome to Dahlia house, that's Justine behind me. This is with them resized significantly, and moved a tad forward, and using the silver and blue options from the tinting HUD.



There's a couple different ways to make this match the winter holiday of your choice--the one I went with was green horns, which turns into a lovely dark sage tone on them, red highlights, and red drapes. The wombat behind me is Justine's.



You can also remove both the highlights on the markings, and the cloth draping the antlers. This is the purple, and it's also a lovely hue over the horns.

I think the lemon-yellow wombat is Dowayne Ekaterina's...



The colors don't really go with the outfit, but I think they look pretty nifty together.



I wasn't going to show off the black, because it really is midnight-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean levels of dark? But I think I can show it with the markings active, which for fun, I've made pink.



And this one is showing the white option, which makes it look very close kin to aged bone, and I set the options for gold on the rest.

There are ten options for the antlers, for the markings, and for the drapes, and as I mentioned, you can take off the highlights for the markings, and the drapes, at will.

You can find these at Abnormality, when it opens on May 7th. I'll try and update the price for them then!

[17:40] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): But, for now, this is exit stage left, carrying a bird for some reason. At least it's not pursued by a bear.

See you at Abnormality!

lay down and whisper to its roots "won't you take my sorrow from me?"

So, take two on taking the horns out for a spin!



I went to Strange Matters, a Macbeth-centered art sim. "Foul Whisperings" is right, lines from the play repeat if you have sounds on.

And I forgot the hair I picked to wear with them had wee horns already, so...I tried to make the horns disappear, which I accomplished, but failed utterly on making the hair that wraps AROUND the hair also disappear? Bother.



This is a very odd sim. Randomly clicking things may port you elsewhere, or shunt you up a level, or introduce you to an endless staircase and a court chamber beset with ghosts...I would say it's worth a visit for that alone, the randomness effect.



This was as close as I could manage, because there's so many places to focus on on these. The drape is either whole, or tattered; there's a separate chest drape (I don't show it off, but it does exist), and with the number of things you can choose to recolor, these can be wildly variable. You can make them solid, cored with swirling colored aether, or cored with moving magma.



They have a word garden! 'Ware the reaching hands.



Mes! I found a birb!

Big damn bird, even. Carrying a dagger. (And if you sit on it, it flies out of the nest and takes you somewhere else.)



And I'd finished the sixth picture, thinking I was done, when I looked at the one past that...which had the HUD. So here you go! End picture with the HUD showing!

It looks complicated, but if you understand the breakdown, it's really not. "Horns" will tint the entire horn, inset channels and outer structure. "Solid horns" omits the inset channel. "Drapes" will give you whole silk draped between the metal rings, and "Tattered" will change that whole drape to a tattered one.

"Aether" gives you a delicately eerie, almost starfield-swirl of glowing motes suspended in whatever color you picked for the channel. "Magma"--which is actually the option shown here, but I picked red for the horns and pink for the magma, so it's hard to see--gives you a more molten-seeming core through the channel (and is also animated).

As it happens, due to unfortunate delays, this event actually opened on the fourth, and it's now the eleventh, so--uh, sorry? But it's still open, and this will land you at the center (where hopefully, you'll get a beacon to follow for the booth).

They're going for L$388, which is a huge discount, so if you love these as much as I do--leap on them before this month of We Love Roleplay folds up!

I'll place the moon within your heart

Let's have some oddity!



I went to Forever Winter, with the closest I could get to chibi in SL (without actually going Dinkie). What I got turned out to be a not-quite classic shortstack (link included for those what don't know the term, and it's...reasonably...SFW), but I'm still fairly pleased with her. The only place I had trouble was the eyes, so the eyes I ended up going with were a no-copy mesh pair from Ruin, and that's going in the saved-outfit folder, I guess.

Sorry, Ruina.



But lookit! These are the large size of the Perchten horns from /Vae Victis\! Without resizing!!



But yes, she am short. And on non-moderate sims, why yes, this avatar will get me in trouble (because she's even shorter than my usual level of smol).



Oh, I like this bench. Comes with its own blankie. And there the horns are in gothic tones of deep red and coal-black.



Really great aged gold texture on them, too.



And the hud for that final note of closure.

I know I say this a lot about Vae Victis horns, but I really do mean it--I love these. I love their colors, I love that I can go deep haunted darkness up to fluffy pastels, dependent on mood. And I am tickled beyond reason that this avatar can wear the large horns straight out of the box.



You can pick up a copy of Madpea's Advent calendar still (I guess, me for size reference?); it runs L$500 at the /Vae Victis\ store--or any store of the other designers of nifty products in the calendar. And it will function quite nicely as a holiday art piece, so that price tag covers not only the gifts inside, but the gift of the little house. Very neatly done all around.