Silentsparrow Month! Day 22 - Blue Monday

I have no good excuse for brevity today (I hear it's like, the soul of wit, or something, I fail bard). I'm just feeling the traditional Monday blah that gets bandied around with such excitement. My day consisted of doing the dishes and being told by my daughter that it's extremely rude to call someone a "pie" (after I called her a pudding-pie) and failing to manage to offload my excess bunny nests (*ahem* Visit our meadow if you so desire, and take a peek at the nests. And hang out! I like company). That's enough pimping my bunnies. I feel dirty now. It's not as fun as I've been led to believe! But I have nice bunnies, and their babies need nice homes. Apart from that, blah. Happily, though, I remain in possession of a very big folder full of silentsparrow clothes, so at least I can still look very pretty, and that can only be a good thing.

I like to think that today I am chapioning some somewhat under-appreciated gems from silentsparrow. Just in that, with exceptions, I don't see people wearing them very often. Also I'm still in slouchycasual mode, as partially explained above. First off, my corset. It's one of the older Seperates I know of that is still in the store, I think it was around when I first started haunting silentsparrow and gazing longingly at the pretties. it's the Blue Velvet corset, from the Ribbons Velvet Corset pack. The detailing on it is truly impressive, with tulips and roses adorning the front, and a great big blue bow, and 15 little metal clasps (I counted!). At the back, the ribbons lacing it have a vaguely greenish, iridescent quality to the shading, and it's all over very pretty. With it, the Gloomy Shrug, detailed with glorious spirals, like the tentacles of a particularly artistic seamonster, or some sort of grabby black ooze, or something equally sinister and pretty. Or else, I could just give the cop-out that's in my head and describe them as "Burtonesque". If you squint at the detail on the sculpted cuff, it looks a little bit like a stylized skull. It's lovely. The collarless version I'm wearing here is particularly fun in that it doesn't actually appear to have anything holding it together, it's just sleeves for the sake of wonderfulness (and a bit of a return to my ooze theory). My jeans are from a suit I think is definitely overlooked by many, but is one of the more traditional "goth" outfits in the whole store. It only comes in black and has a freakin' trenchcoat, land's sake! House of Leaves is a delight in details, slinky and sexy while covering every inch, with three coat-tail options and sculpted leaf-shaped buttons, and these incredible jeans! They're very lightly patterned, with faded patches on the knees and the seat of the pants, which is where you can really see how lovely the patten is, and they even have that little patch that I've never known the name of. You know, the one that's like a big belt loop and has the name of the brand on it? Anyway, with these, you can proudly display your designer goth jeans, which is nice. I'm not much of one for 'labels', but this is subtle and awesome enough for me to accept and love, and the silentsparrow logo is, after all, very pretty.

Outfit Credits:

Skin: Curio - Moonbeam Frex [Dark] - Winter - Frost 2
Hair: Magika - Jackie - Red C
Top: silentsparrow - Blue Velvet Corset
Shrug: silentsparrow - Gloomy Shrug - Sorrow
Pants: silentsparrow - House of Leaves
Locket: silentsparrow - Chapiteau Locket - Seanorse
Shoes: Kari - Kicks

Blogger Challenge: Plus-Sized Pixels

Hybrid Ansar's Big Girl Challenge was one I had to give a go, being as in real life I am, let's say, a touch on the Rubenesque side. Over the last few months, my avatar has been gradually creeping up in weight, from a usual SL 'petite' to something that could just about in RL count as curvy. Slimly curvy, but curvy, nonetheless. To me, it's not enough just to ramp up the 'Fat' slider and say you're done, so for this challenge I based Niv's shape on my own shape. And that shape is pear-shaped. Oh so very pear-shaped. I have almost no bust to speak of, but hips and thighs forever and ever. And not much in the way of a butt. So I'm a sort of 2D pear, really. A cross section of a pear, perhaps. As some sort of self-esteem thing, I've come to consider pearshaped a very sexy shape, in a quirky kind of way. In smaller proportions than my own preferably, but small breasts and big hips are now terribly aesthetically pleasing to me.

As I based the shape off my own, I erred on the side of caution as far as dressing nicely, and so for the first picture, I dressed as me. But with red hair. The shirt I'm wearing, from Naive, I have one very similar to, in RL. Perse told me I needed more colour ("You don't usually dress in such...bland colors" "I dress like this in RL except my hair is brown so it's even more bland!" "Oh") so I threw some armwarmers in there, something I have an immense collection of. But she had a point, and so I also made a second outfit that was a little more 'Niv', consisting of one of my favourite skirts, from Thimbles, and some silentsparrow. Can't be Niv without some silentsparrow!

On the whole, the experience of doing this challenge has actually been really fantastic, in a deep sort of way. I loved how my avatar looked. And that was a surprise in itself. Because, she looked like me. Okay, with better skin/hair and nicer clothes, but, the shape that I thought looked so nice, was my shape. It was a self-esteem boost of sorts, and felt quite liberating. I was proud of how "I" looked.
On the other hand, I have extra extra admiration for people who do this all the time. I couldn't. I briefly considered it, but it would all be such hard work. Just the logistics of it. I'd have to resize all my skirts, a lot. And poses! Poses would be a nightmare! I used Dove Swanson's chubby poses from her recent Poop hunt, and still my hands were poking through my flesh. It was disheartening and I can't imagine having to have that as an everyday feature, with the difficulty of finding an AO that 'fit' and....everything. It'd be exhausting. And I'd feel like a balloon next to some people *cough*Emee*cough*. Still, I think my av will be eating a few more big meals in future, and perhaps a time will come when SL is kinder to the bigger lass.

Outfit credits:

Pic 1:

Skin: [plastik] BaelElven-Glow-Freck
Hair: Truth - Gemma - Cranberry
Shirt: .:Naive:. Face Top White
Pants: Sprawl - The Treble - Oxblood
Shoes: {kari} - Kicks
Necklace: >>Figure 8<< Jr High BFFs (Be Frie (Emee has the other half, we're so cute))

Pic 2:

Skin: Curio - Pin Up - Moonbeam Dark [Frex] - Jitterbug 1
Hair: Gritty Kitty - Faders - Red
Corset: silentsparrow - Blood Velvet Corset
Skirt: Thimbles - Svetlana Takes the Bus (black)
Shoes: Kookie - Kat Platforms - Red