bona lolita drag

i <3 drag queens. i mean, really. i respect and admire them tons, and cherish the fond thought that if i had been born male, with my same personality, then i'd actually try to be a drag queen.
that being said...





...i'd been shopping and stopped by one of my fave places, nightshade designs. they had the Charmant/Charmante set, a girl and a boy outfit. being the perverse person i am i thought to put girl juana in the boy outfit and boy juana in the girl dress. besides which, the girl's outfit is lolita, and who is the most uber lolita of them all? mana of course.....so i just ended up getting sidetracked with leandro in drag, so juana's debut in man drag will have to be in another post. :)

charmante juana wears: charmante set raven by nightshade designs trophy hat by i <3 thirteen opheliac skin & necromantic bloomers by violent seduction alice hair by deviant kitties lollo estremista ballet heels by grim bros sugar skulls & roses tattoos by otaku designs loud brown eyes by artilleri	charmant leandro wears: charmante set raven by nightshade designs scorpio revelation skin by lower lip spike punk by PopFuzz buddy glasses by Gudshu glasses trophy hat by i <3 thirteen necromantic bloomers by violent seduction alice hair by deviant kitties sugar skulls & roses tattoos by otaku designs gothico boots by grim bros loud brown eyes by artilleri

midway

one of my favorite things about second life is that you never know who or what you will encounter in your daily travels/routine...in this case i arrived somewhere with a specific purpose in mind, to make fun of someone, and ended up feeling too awed and moved to do anything but stare and wonder.



The sim owner and builder, MASAKADO Allen, was incredibly kind and gracious. Even though translation programs can be awkward at best, she was so patient and taught me a few japanese words. i regret not knowing japanese, i would have liked to have been able to extend her the same courtesy. it was so amazing to me to think of us both chatting nicely, the two of us, though our countries had once been bitter enemies.

i think the most moving part came near the end. she had explained to me that the Akagi was sunk during the battle of Midway, (***correction: Yamato was sunk, but much later. Many thanks to Grady Echegaray who kindly pointed this out to me, along with the correct spelling of Akagi***) and i asked her if both ships still remained on the ocean floor. She told me that they sleep in the ocean.

i hope they and the bodies of the men that they still entomb, slumber peacefully.


pseudo-cher juana wears:

corvus dress, WL goth skin by nomine
abbadon bracers by tekeli'li
big bomb hair by bp
u-sha fantasie necklace by husky gfx
hathor goddess diadem by eyecandy
paradisis armlets by cat-i-mimi
neck corset by RU
fallen disgrace boots by nightshade designs


listening to audio from the
movie "Midway" (1976)
At Masakado Allen's sim
YAMATO of Japan

rest in peace
Yamato and Akegi

private eye

i am very fond of koinup....they have the most interestingly cool things there. i rely on it most to find new and interesting sims. and by extension i end up learning new and ever more obscure factoids. like enka, a style of japanese music.



this sim is apparently a kind of red light district prevalent in japan before wwii. i was wearing a newly acquired accessory from a designer i like but who has appeared to be inactive for nearly 2 years. its apparently for photographing ghosts. if there are any in second life, i can't say i have seen them, but it made me think of private eyes snooping around. and i wandered around but found no ghosts to speak of.

juana p.i. wears:

egyptian dress by fumi
peppa hair by diversity hair
trophy skulls hat by i love 13
neck corset by ru
hair rose wine by gfield
skull pendant, coffee bangles, & armlets by grim bros
apneatic embrace corset & stockings by blacklist
carpe noctem shoes by nightshade designs
dollhouse skin 25 by lionskins
camera obscura, heaven's tears eyes, and pose by tohru

in the akesan sim
listening to Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss auf Liebe engestelt
sung by marlene dietrich

asylum street spanker

i swear to god that is the name of a real band in austin. and funny too because yesterday as i drove up to the sex shop where i take my pole dancing lessons i noticed the scraggly little graveyard alongside the road. if i am correct in my suspicion, it is the (state hospital) aka. asylum graveyard....

...the same grounds where roses bloom, and that sheltered a friend of mine for a short period of time. but i digress.

i was bored and exploring and tonight felt like going to an SL asylum. for the most part they are sort of boring. this one place i landed "the rubberdoll asylum" sounded weird and then i realized it was a fetish club for people who like their slaves encased in layers of latex.

i can't help myself. it makes me laugh. and i don't mean to offend the lovers of saran-wrapped slaves-american community, but it just cracks me up.

this place was so interesting because it was done up all scary white and black and shiny, and there were these odd little padded latex cells on one floor.

the most hilarious part was the "slave gymnasium" area...they had the most hilariously bizarre contraptions there...they pretty much put me in mind of extreme versions of pilates machines. and said machines were amply equipped with wonderfully stupid facial expressions....

ooh! those shoes make me so happy! juana wears:

bird's nest outfit by un jour
amaya posture collar, fetish stockings, and arm belts by gauze
graphite skin by cutea benelli
triple ice hair by bp
dragonfly gloves by i totally can't figure it out.
carpe noctem boots by blacklist
zydratic complication eyes by aura falta

to live and to die....again

Originally uploaded by al-zahra

i went to visit bakersfield kidd's pictures. i thought it most appropriate to go half naked, adorned in his splendid tattoos.

i am glad i went, though i was alone, and it was deserted. i didn't wear anything new, only in one of my cihuateotl outfits.

it felt right to be clothed in them, surrounded by his things.

lucifer gave me a title this last week which suprised me, but i was honored by it too. and so this i think i would choose to accessorize with this title, mictlancacihuatl....the lady of the land of the dead.

hazmat club girl at the meat market

i am very fond of dance music, and the clubs in second life have good music but they also look so cool. and even if there are annoying people it's nicer than feigning interest when a drunk person screams idiotic pickup lines in your ear, flavored with their beer breath.
i went to kitu lounge, which was amusing because they had dance platforms that move up and down with the music. if that was for real i would totally be vomiting and fall off too. but in second life it is no big deal, and you can even look as odd as you want to.......

because I sort of can't take it seriously dressed like this....in a frat boy meat market kind of club....

the juana the club girl wears:

dedalo set by blue blood
black widow boots by nightshade designs
forbidden 19 skin by lionskins
amaya kimono arm belts and posture collar by gauze
riddle multi by magika (guilty for wearing it but oh well)
skull bracers by ct
finga gloves by snatch

alice in wonderland/strange girls

i was bored and went to the alice in wonderland ride. it was odd but not creepy.

i was bad and jumped off the ride and wandered in the display. while there i met an avatar named avril bosshart. she was nice, and gave me a radioactive cookie. this is the first time in recorded history that i have worn a cookie like that. but it seemed fitting.

there were other very interesting displays. i wished though that you could be shrunk or be turned into a giant, when you passed the "eat me" and "drink me" signs. it reminded me too much of the disney cartoon version, in the end.

juana in wonderland wears:

sade dress set & carpe noctem boots by nightshade designs
dream hair by red queen
forbidden 14 skin by lionskins

it seemed the sort of place to wear this outfit. it reminds me a little of the RL alice and the pirates label that i see often in the gothloli bible.

and then this is where it gets a bit odder. i found a big top circus stage set up. it seemed the thing to do, to put on a saloon outfit, and do a little dance. i was in the middle of something and then i realized that avril was there. she'd found me, and so i asked her if she wanted to be in the machinima. she changed into a really lovely deadly clown outfit, and then we did our little strange girls thing in the big top.


the strange girls wear:
on juana:

midnight victorian and amaya kimono cuffs by Gauze
rose suede hairpin (wine) by G Field
black coffin ring by Schadenfreude
goth hat by unknown
aDiva couture temptress hat by aDiva
platform dia de los muertos shoes by Grim Bros
susie leather choker
june hair style by Catwa
forbidden 14 by LionSkins

on avril bosshart:

shoes, dress, hat, parasol, and skin from Carnival of Doom
Machette hair by Deviant Kitties

incroyable

i have always loved the crazy clashy mad exaggerated styles of the incroyables and merveilleuses of the directoire.

but then again when i was younger and more impressionable i had a mild obsession with the french revolution and napoleon too.

i really love visual kei. sometimes i think that the people who wear that style are like the modern versions of the incroyables (and merveilleuses, in drag).

in the dreamworld, where one can dress as madly and as improbably as one wishes with impunity, some of the meaning of this style i think is lost in translation. it is nothing to go shopping and toss together a vague facsimilie of incroyable fashion.

in particular i hate frock coats and tail coats in second life because they never fit my stumpy little avatar. and ditto with the jabots. on the bright side this is a style that requires one to look exaggerated.

so i did as best i could, and found a funny napoleonic sim to play around in. it was literally named "napoleon's empire" and had a profusion of mostly empty little palaces to loot, ships in the harbor and also circling the waters of the surrounding sea.

there was even a little guillotine in the little fortress, and a rustic looking in, complete with a little rat that would crawl around the floor in an endless loop.

it amuses me too. the real incroyables were rebelling against the revolution--they were royalists, and therefore really expressing themselves quite dangerously with their crazy clothes.

it's sad that in this insipid second life version, there is no political subtext. i suppose if i were wearing a bush/cheney button instead of a cockade it might come close, but i'd rather not. i fear that this outfit is way too restrained for proper 18th century incroyable-ness, but it's only second life, and we must make allowances for that.

jeanne the second life incroyable wears:

napoleonic bicorne hat ( i totally love the cockade) by illusions
coat, jabot, cuffs, from Pearl set & Lovebound tails by the black canary
rQ Torn Noir by Red Queen
Copper Sand Pants fall front pantaloons by Ravenswood Regency (To a T)
forbidden 20 by LionSkins
stockings (harajuku doll) and fallen disgrace boots by nightshade designs
napoleonic hussar saber by Moyer's Military

i couldn't leave that sim without trying out the guillotine. sadly there is a bit of a predjudice apparently against short avatars, because it rather inhumanely would mean that only the top half of jeanne's head would get chopped off.

but i'd rather have half my head chopped off than suffer a bush restoration.

sexy-land hitman pranker

i can't help it. i just like to prank people. there is just something so infinitely amusing about it. i was dressed as la virgen de los sicarios, and after wandering in midian city for a while, realizing I looked too much like I belonged there, i decided it might be more fun to go somewhere totally unexpected.

i ended up at a place i'd already been, a naughty voyeur motel in SL. i don't cyber, and i think the notion of "sex" in SL is pretty silly (a personal opinion)...and i had been there before to laugh and take a machinima of juana dancing in the peepshow and mostly to gawk at the set up.

i was not disappointed in terms of the silliness factor. there were people wandering about in various states of undress, and after trying out the poses (alone) and screaming with laughter at the simulated avatar sex faces, I went to pose in the peepshow room. to my great amusement someone arrived to watch me though i was only using a bellydance animation. he seemed insensitive to my obvious surprise and joking because i kept asking him if he was serious, how could such an improbable display be so interesting?

i got bored and left the wildly upholstered peepshow room because he horrified me with his susequent chafing of the bish.

as I fled i didn't realize there was an upper level to this build, and so i ascended to investigate. in SL everyone is a peeping tom anyway, with your camera being able to cross walls. and i spied a guy waiting on a bed in one of the rooms.

so i did what came naturally, which is to say i busted in on him with guns drawn pretending to be a hitman.

i forgot in my innocence that this might be construed as a sort of game. i think this what the poor befuddled gentleman thought. he was sending me politely worded yet insistent IMs offering various services. i just laughed and laughed. The whole scene was made even more risible by the sudden arrival of an audience. they were drawn i suppose by the lure of two green dots together on the mini map.
avatars have a very vacant slack jawed look to them that seemed quite appopriate given the circumstances.

i did get bored though and announced to the assembly that i was not there for games, booty, and fun, just playing a prank. and walked back into the downstairs.

the downstairs is incidentally furnished with a naughty cinema. i didn't bother to activate the screen. i was wandering around liking the way the red interior looked with my outfit when several people arrived and sat down in the seats. for the most part they were clothed. but one person felt very moved to remove his clothes in my presence. he had a hilariously impossibly large appendage too. he worked it up and down a few times presumably to get my attention.

i ignored him. and he sat down beside me, with his avatar periodically breaking into an idiotic grin. for some reason he also felt that decorum would be violated if he removed his shoes, and so they stayed on.

i finally became bored and left, presumably never to return. :)

shopping binge

i am always the last person in the world to find out things.

i found a sl visual kei fashion blog i loved, and zeroed into a store i hadn't been to yet. and pretty much went crazy in there. then i took myself to club baby seals and saw dancien and momo. momo was wearing the dogwitch set from nomine. i didn't recognize what dancien wore save the burnt bones skin from Nomine. it was funny because momo naturally knew all about the store i had visited, and even chided me very gently, with her astounding encyclopedic knowledge of sl fashion. i also had no idea either about the hair boycott, and got a rundown on it. it was a really interesting hour or so visit--i tried out my new computer, and dancien and momo talked a little about the things they did when they make their poems in the language of images. it was really fascinating to hear, like having the curtain drawn back and seeing the gears moving behind the scenes.

stats:

skin: dark jester; latex top, skirt, leg bands: isis silks; boots: black widow; all by Nightshade Designs
skulls chest ornament, gloves, stockings, and underpants: Dogwitch by Nomine
tattoos: Mayan Dream by Garden of Ku
bracelets: Bloody rawbones by Retox
skull nose ring: AVZ
Jolly roger armband: Grim Bros
hair: Riddle by Magika
wings: Cobweb by Material Squirrel
badass obsidian sword: Cortech cyber Macahuitl by Beezle Warburton

it was interesting, and i left soon after. i wanted to try on the rest of the things i had bought, and bored, went to odaesan house. i tried on one of the dresses i had found, a black EGL, and to amuse myself listened to malice mizer's song "baroque" while i wandered around. i am curious if since it is all black, that means it qualifies as a kuro loli dress?

stats:

skin: dark jester; dress, stockings, gloves: Sade; leg bands: isis silks; boots: black widow; by Nightshade Designs
tattoos: Mayan Dream by Garden of Ku
parasol: Reien set by Sweetaholic
skull nose ring: AVZ
Immaculate heart necklace: Tekel'li
hair: Lucy by Magika
Skull Ear Spikes: Mad About
Raven Pennyfeather hat: Nonna Hedges

i got some more dresses and boots but i will have to wait for another day to fiddle with them.