Monday 11 February 2013

Reminiscence. Mesh heads. Kitana.

Items gifted at Barerose: 6 (good); SL consumer trends as reflected in inventory at Barerose: 3 (trendy); Months since last blog post: 5 (whatever) 

Spent last night stalking raffle globe in Barerose. Reminescent of old times so decided ought to unleash new blog post. Am surprised to see after all these months that still have 31 followers (though have my doubts about the follower named ZaLV0fYV2Z7OF_LohUC0.m.j7rqKUg). Suppose they have forgotten were following and will be surprised and no doubt delighted to see new Yoshikawa post popping up on their dashboard.

Must have got bout of nostalgia for Old Blogging Times after seeing Barerose refreshingly unchanged i.e. still consists of huge structure like tacky gothic cathedral with walls filled with piles and piles of stuff in no particular order (see pics 1 and 2). Most stuff priced at something like 179 Linden which sounds cheaper than it actually is, so immediately tempted to snap things up esp. if e.g. box of cute floral chiffon tops which is nestling in a bank of costumes for obscure old anime series. Think Barerosers must really be fiendishly sharp businesspeople.

The Raffle Orb detects who is in its orbit and periodically shouts e.g. "ChocolateMunchie Resident has just won a ::: B@R ::: Gold Long Dress just for being here!" Probability is that wouldn't want most of items anyway, but is worth it to find out what some of the things are e.g. what on earth is an "Abs. Dress  C1", apart from being a dress, obviously.

My loot so far for hanging round in the Barerose orb zone (I am in evening dress in foreground of pic 2) is:
- Two mesh heads, one Furry, one not
- Knee length striped dress
- Display katana x 2
- Fancy white fantasy armour with wings
- Spooky Bat avatar
You can see them in their boxes here. Unfortunately none of these were item that caused raffle-stalking in the first place i.e snake neck wrap.Wanted it as in RL was born in Year of the Snake which is also THIS year, so from this you can guess that am at or nearly one of following ages: 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, 96. Will give clue that isn't 12 or 96.

Anyway to return to loot, have to admit that anticipation was rather more than the actuality. Indeed to be frank; - are those heads Sheila Yoshikawa style? Think not. How often have you seen me in a demon avatar? Never. And what home requires 2 identical display kitana? Well, actually, could see those nestling in twin niches in some swanky Japanese mansion.

That trip to Barerose reveals top 3 trends in SL fashion consumerism, as evidenced by type of stuff on sale. These trends are:
- Mesh. Most designers now putting things out in mesh, despite fact that means that a) you can’t layer properly and b) you have to have a shape either very thin and straight or VERY curvy with unfeasibly small waist aka Standard Sizes (Xtra Small to Large).
- Petites. Apparently lots more people want to go round as tiny people, and now they have lots of clothes to do it in.
- Add-on breasts aka Lolas aka Tangos aka Lush (etc etc). SL now populated by far more avatars with huge fronts, which bounce in an oddly realistic and disturbing fashion. Or perhaps disturbance not that odd. Anyway lots of designers now issuing clothes with quaintly named Appliers which mean that their clothes adapt to these appendages. Started by being just designers of a more Saucy nature, but has definitely gone mainstream. Thus some of Barerose boxes depict t-shirts and fantasy battle armour of eye-popping proportions.
If this all sounds v. unpleasant is simple solution i.e. to use SL browser that can't see mesh. This reduces Lola-wearing mesh petites to a disembodied name-tag and perhaps the odd non-mesh fairy wand.


The blog of Sheila Yoshikawa on her adventures in Second Life. This may be very thrilling. Or possibly not.