fat bottomed girls, you make the rockin' world go 'round

There is no way I'm getting out of this one without accusations of fat shaming, or difference shaming.

But.



The whole reason I do these things is not specifically to poke fun at other people. I am a very judgmental person by nature, I accept this. And I have been trying to work on it. I like to think I've gotten (a little) better, which is saying something considering where I started.

However.

At some point expansion renders the human form meaningless. From the rear? This lass is all bum and thighs. You can see arms; you can see what seems to be a very small back in comparison. It takes you several seconds, if not minutes, to realize her feet are visible, and they seem the size of Twinkies, if not smaller things. You CAN see breasts, though, and again, from the rear, which generally should be impossible, people.



And let me be VERY clear, here: She is not uncute in any way. Even with the censor bar in place, she is not uncute. This is not a case of a troll who came in, deliberately distorted an avatar shape, and ran around trying to hassle people because they're mentally five. She is not that. This is the look she wanted to have. Her profile makes that very clear.

But from the front? The distortion's actually worse. Again, there are feet--barely--but what she doesn't have when viewed from the front? ARMS. My gods, she barely has shoulders from the front. Torso? Forget about it. She's all breasts and hips and thighs.

She looks like someone's put a Bratz doll head on a Cabbage Patch kid. It's so disproportional. So many of her animations clipped through her everything.



In fact, have an abomination in comparison, because I had some free time:



That is exactly what she reminds me of. There's just too much inflation. Yes, it's a virtual world, yes, live your dreams, yes, be who you want in the skin you want that best expresses who you really are...but if that's who Ms. Overfilled is, well...I mean, enjoy throwing off all animations for the rest of your SL existence.

through the airwaves--people never read the airwaves

From the Rewind event, which this time out is themed for 90's hip-hop.



In the meantime, this is one of my favorite retro dresses. I have worn it a great deal. I've never actually sat down in it, though.

Until now.



Now, that may sound strange, but when I go to work, a lot of the time I do end up standing, talking to people, dancing with people, general greeting in the sky club or in the mansion at ground level. None of this requires sitting down.



I tried all the positions on the side chairs, frowned, and moved to the sofa, and tried all of their poses. Nothing worked, nothing at all worked.



And finally, I figured, okay, let's at least try the lays. There are two. Both failed.

The inescapable truth is, I can't sit in this dress. Now I'm thinking I need to go through my entire inventory (a terrifying proposition) and test everything in a chair. Or even more specifically, the chair and sofa set at work. Because I do own mesh dresses that work when sitting.

So much extra work. This never happened with flexi.

you're the broken glass in the morning light

So, Bandai Games is releasing a new Soul Calibur game for the Playstation console. Which I thought was grand news, until I heard that they'd hired Yamatogawa, an artist of hentai (erotic) manga to design new armor. And, well...it shows:



That's the front. Here's the back:



And both are shown on Ivy. Want to see it in motion? It doesn't quite push over the line of NSFW, but it comes excruciatingly close at times:



because it's not just on Ivy in the game. It's also an armor drop for Amy. Who normally looks like this:



She's nearly always been seen portrayed as very young--either in a typical Japanese schoolgirl's outfit, or--as seen here--in a frothy black lace Lolita confection, with bouncy rag curls. And that's mostly how we're used to seeing her. Until this game:



which just looks...well, it's the definition of wrong in the video above, seriously.

Now, a friend tracked down Yamatogawa's original concept art for the armor:



(which you can see full-size here) which, he thinks now, is Yamatogawa's attempt to make armor that looks like the Soul Edge sword itself. He dug up this image for me:



of the Nightmare armor, with the token oversized sword, and I can see it, because at least in the concept art, it's easy to match up edges, fangs and the eye. But, and I think this is an important but, the armor behind that sword? Is full coverage.

Because it's on a man.

It's 2015, should we still have to be fighting these battles to play games? Why aren't there other options? Have they just completely given up and the next Soul Calibur game will feature finishing moves with active penetration? Why do this??

stay wilder than the wind

First up, an occasionally NSFW Tumblr paying tribute to a lot of really, really bad art called Boobs Don't Work That Way. Taken mostly from game and anime sources, it's a hysterical defense of anatomy and female attributes, and the artists who get both wrong. Well worth the occasional perusal, if not actually choosing to follow them.

Also, if you have a pool, and you like coffins (this seems a very niche market, but hey), these people make pool floats with you in mind. You're welcome.

I've never been drawn to the EVE Online experience; I know people that are, but seriously, if I'm going to spend a long time playing a game about cargo deliveries between worlds, I'll set up Starfarers of Catan. Still, that being said, they seem to have one of the best character creators currently available.

There's a bit of good and bad in the next two bits. First the bad: for whatever reasons occur to Hollywood producers, a remake of the Killer Shrews movie has been made. I'm deeply scared by this.

Thankfully, a friend of mine found the Quintek Group's homage to Star Trek for me. Part typography, part stylized alternate credits sequence, all fantastic to watch.

Also, have some carnivorous cakes. You're welcome.

There's a new JIRA on scripted object permissions that I, personally, think sets a bad precedent--namely, and at least in my opinion, the Lindens have gone overboard on what a good "caution" against giving objects account permissions should be:

The text reads:

"The object ****** wants total access to your Linden Dollars account. If you allow access, it can remove funds from your account at any time, or empty your account completely, on an ongoing basis with no additional warnings. It is rare that such a request is legitimate. Do not allow access if you do not fully understand why it wants access".

Users are being frightened by this new message, and many percieve it as a "different thing" to the regular debit permissions dialog.

In addition, the text "It is rare that such a request is legitimate" is completely inaccurate - it's not at all rare, many of us deal with many objects every day which require this permission.

I completely understand the need for transparency regarding debit permissions - it's a dangerous point of access for malicious scripts. However, the dialog should be reworded so it is informative and accurate, rather than trying to frighten users into paying attention.

Now, to me, that particular language is just designed to scare people and make them fearful of rezzing out any object that requires account permissions to use. How'ver, as a friend pointed out, it is extremely difficult in the new official viewer to revoke account permissions once given.

For me personally, that's a) yet another reason not to use the official viewer, and b) perhaps something that the Lindens should also look into--making account permissions easier to revoke.

Finally, Soul Caliber V has released a new DLC, and--it's wedding outfits. Wait, what? An arena fighting game with a higher-than-average percentage of male players of the game in the first place, can now have...wedding attire.

To fight in.

What?

I've found some better-quality pictures, and overwhelmingly I think it's a severely odd design choice for the game, but keep in mind, this is what some of the characters look like normally, so weirdly, the new DLC will give them more clothes to wear. I...guess that's a good thing?

dress me, I'm your mannequin

Friend of mine tossed me a link to the video of Pasarella's latest show in world--and it took me about half an hour to track down the two dresses that absolutely wowed me in that show.

Turns out they're both made by the same store--Donna Flora in Bodin. The "Clessidra" hourglass dress runs L$400, and cannot be worn without viewer 2.x capability; the same goes for the two "Cage" dresses (though they're L$450, due to coming with hair and shoes. One's in a wine and gold, one's in black and gold, and both have the cage-and-birds lower skirt). They're stunning, all three of them.

I spent the past two days walking around in Clessidra:

From the Fashion album

Just astounding. And yes, that's not a Photoshop trick, you can see right through the middle of the dress. The sand in the hourglass doesn't move, but it looks like it does.

From the Fashion album

I adore the shading on the clock hands that rim the skirt and make up the gear-and-clock-bits collar. It gives the effect of aged, burnished brass, perhaps copper-plated, perhaps not, depending on the time of day.

From the Fashion album

Especially considering the fact that both sleeves and skirt--and, well, the "hourglass" waist (sorry)--are all sculpted and thus, immobile, these are surprisingly easy, fluid pieces. The shading is superb, there could be more detail on the wood of the hourglass itself but it does come with a very nice hand-tatted doily on top, and my only complaint is that she didn't leave the alpha layer moddable, so that I can wear shoes alphas with it. Still, it's something to consider--making alpha layers on my own and seeing if that works out for a shoe/dress combination.

(The pictures for "Clessidra" were taken on Cleonae; the hair is the Ribbon Updo II from Curio; the skin's from Adam & Eve's Mei Li 2 line, this one in particular being Geisha 1; the shoes are the 'Folden Boots' in Moss Green from Glad Rags; and the eyes are House of Ruin's Mortis in Bloodstoned (don't know if they're still available but you can always check the rebranded Rue on the Marketplace).

And that brings us to Caged (in Black):

From the Fashion album

This one is, unfortunately, much less forgiving of motion and AO poses due to the thin bottom panel of the birdcage. You need to know that upfront. How'ver, barring that it's a stunningly surreal outfit, and well worth the L$450 she's charging.

From the Fashion album

This is a shot captured when I'm leaning forward slightly; as you can see, the un-alpha'ed bit of leg does poke through the bottom. The legs show through in the same fashion when walking, sitting, or laying down. Still, for this dress, I can handle it being photo ops and careful movements. And it's all dependent on your poses, too--for instance, none of my geisha poses caused the legs to poke through the bottom, so if you track down an AO built for a more formal walking style (the Lyonesse, Kamilah Hauptmann, may have an AO that would work), you may not have this difficulty.

From the Fashion album

Straight out of the box this one takes more adjusting, too. It will be very shape-dependent for how well it fits. Still, all I did was slightly move the gauzy drape, and move the skirt up a bit, down a bit, until my legs mostly stopped showing.

From the Fashion album

I'd like the hair better if it were flexi, honestly, and you do have to watch standing against alpha textures, because nearly the whole of the hair is alpha. But all in all, quite pleased with the outfit, and glad I took the plunge.

A NOTE OF WARNING: These are transferable frocks. Yes, that means what you think it does, so be very careful rezzing out and unpacking the box, and save your transaction history just in case. If you make a mistake, your only option will be to buy a new copy, and that's scary, I know. But you should know that before you go to Donna Flora's and ask to see the latest.

(The pictures for "Caged" were taken on Villas on Villa, in their Parisian and Tuscan villas, respectively. The skin is Mango Mango's "Shadow Vamp; the eyes were made by Miriel Enfield, whose store is now closed, alas. The hair and shoes come with the dress.)