the notebook/fashion diary with an identity crisis.
Merveilleuse. [Fr. merveilleux, marvelous, exquisite] A fashionable woman under the Directory in France at the close of the 18th century, at which time ultra-fashionable people affected extraordinary innovations in costume. Hence, any new style in female costume.
what you have neglected because of your happiness. that is the only excuse i will give you, that i was following the light at the end of my lantern. it is still burning very brightly, and i am still journeying with my companions and my new love, but i am learning to wander through the flowers and the high grass in the fields that flank the road, happily unaccompanied in my own reveries. but no bouquets of regret.
this little bouquet was collected as i wandered an unknown sim last october, dressed as coatlicue, the serpent skirted mother goddess. today when i was working on something unrelated i saw the clips from this adventure, and decided to use it as my re-entry into the sl blogging "monde" after my long retirement. it is also something of a late valentine, too.
coatlicue juana wears:
devon 3b skin & visions of death eyes by
rotten toe
guja snake queen outfit & modded headdress elements from vita's boudoir
pout tattoo by little pricks
archaic choker by grim bros
los muertos tattoo
x & y model hair 16
thigh high boots by j's
the first thing i thought of when i saw the new skins from MadScience Labs was the flayed god, xipe totec. of course, i don't expect the rest of the world to be as pre-columbian addled as i am. the next thing i wanted immediately was a human skin ballgown (in second life of course) to go with the xipe totec theme. for those who do not know, the priests used to wear the flayed skins of sacrificial victims till they rotted off. besides, if you were skinless it seems that would be the perfect material to wear.
sadly, there were no human skin gowns that i could locate in sl. however amusingly enough i came upon a company in the real world that makes faux human skin garments. after some searching, i found an acceptable substitute, the cute zombie bloom dress from Rotten Toe. it is not a new release but i couldn't resist the human heart ornament and blood spatters on the dress. juana decided to get all julio cortazar as a tourist, and it was intensely hilarious to be at the Visit Mexico sim in this getup, bumping into honeymooning avatars on horses.
juana "jose cuervo you are a friend of mine" wears:
zombie bloom and visions of death eyes by rotten toe
mia hair by ploom
mad science [[skinnned]] skin by Rev Eponym
thigh high boots by j's
paperdoll necklace by i love 13
p bouc piercing by female paradox & alpha
skull mask by punkerella summers
bloody bonehead bracelets by retox
i've not been to Mexico, DF. it is one of my dreams to visit, someday. it seems so interesting--apart from the sheer intensity of such a crowded place, there is the unusual geographic situation, and also the weight of history. the residents there are supposed to even have a special character, and have a charming (and from what I read, perhaps derogatory in some contexts) nickname (Chilango). btw, as a completely off-topic aside, i keep up with a particularly hilarious blog called "effective swearing in d.f." which should help me a great deal should i ever get to visit the real Mexico, D.F.
so i thought it very interesting then when i was looking at Liqueur Felix's flickr stream (always the most gorgeous amazing finds and pictures of different places to visit btw) and saw this image of the ciudad de mexico sim, which is apparently a roleplaying sim run by brasilians. upon visiting it in person, i found it really quite lovely, though the observer tag is distinctly hideous to wear (it looks like a fishbowl over your avatar's head). when i was walking there parts of the city reminded me vaguely of nexus prime in 07, and a little of hangar liquides before it moved to insilico. there are three levels to the city, with interesting and mostly empty buildings to look at, but take care. while i was doing my research and exploring the sim, i happened to touch a transport button and it teleported me into an arena on the upper level, into what i think was a beauty pageant that was in progress while i was there. sadly there is no photographic evidence of this caper, as i was so completely flustered i ran across the room and jumped off the building. ah well next time. and now you know this amusing little anecdote.
i was really at a loss what to wear--however there are shops when you first teleport in, and i found a really unusual outfit from rfyre, called providence. of course i pared it down a little to suit my purposes. its really quite striking on its own, but i liked very much how it seemed to combine so well with the deconstructed trenchcoat from nomine. i had also found the amazing mirror hair from paradox and alpha, along with their interesting facial piercings in my earlier travels. as it is this outfit turned out to be a collection of new things and my favorite standbys, as you might recognize the rest of what juana is wearing from other posts.
juana the wannabe cyber chilango wears:
providence house of rfyre
deconstructed trenchcoat by nomine
aztec sample bracelets and armlets by otaku designs (group gift)
bone queen bonus skin cutea benelli
mirror c14 hair and P_Stras piercings by Paradox & Alpha
ving boots by shiny things
mayan dream tattoos by garden of kuu (tinted red)
cybermacahuitl by cortech enterprises
occasionally it makes me laugh to imagine juana as being a dark and sinister fashionista follower of the old gods, prowling the landscapes of second life looking for noobs to sacrifice, to keep up her outfit juju. hey, stranger things have happened. so juana got dressed to kill in one of the new nomine sugar skull skins (throws self on ground in manic abasement and worship of the divine munchflower z.) and went out to look for sacrificial victims for her obscene and deadly fashion rites.
but there is a slight problem with this ho-hum rummaging for sacrificial noobs. this creepy little town......is inhabited by an inescapable horrendous terrible horror the likes of which nobody has ever seen! (and if they did see it they'd go mad!) now, at this point i am thinking that if this little scenario wasn't ever made as a santo film, then it really should have been. (i did google santo vs. the great old ones just to be sure) though actually i would rather have masked takenouchi from cromartie high school in the movie. or at least dress poor juana like him.
apart from these little technical difficulties, now is the time on merveilleuse where we gush about the fashion. and i admit to falling in love with sangre noir, though i first was introduced to this designer when i bought the most adorable dia de los muertos neko set from subtle submission. i love the way this outfit moves. also i can't say enough how much i adore bakersfield kidd's tattoos (they aren't for sale anymore which is why i love them even more). also, cutea benelli, in her infinite goddesslike wisdom has made the most perfect set of sacrificial shoes ever. they are literally stiletto blades impaling severed hearts. <3<3<3!
sugar skull in innsmouth juana wears:
sugar skull skin 3 by nomine
to live and to die tattoos by bakersfield kidd
sangre noir 2 by sangre noir
skull choker and earrings by mad about
bloody bonehead bracelets by retox
obsidian blade by cortech
heartsnatcher stillettos by grim bros/cutea benelli
anzu kuromame hair by ay.line
hair rose wine by gfield
visions of death eyes by rotten toe
in innsmouth sim
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Innsmouth/128/130/25
listening to
Krios- Illa Tiðandi (Burzum cover)
it is the first day of october. and it begins my most favorite time of the year.....that lasts till nov 3rd. by now you all know that i am obsessed with pre-hispanic culture, and at this time of year i am even more obsessed by la catrina, the female dandy skeleton and symbol of the day of the dead. to me she is more than just a symbol, but also in my opinion a living link to ancient mesoamerican death goddesses. she has been called many names, this "lady of the land of the dead," and i strongly suspect that she is still being worshiped in the modern cult of santa muerte.
it made me wonder....if jose guadalupe posada improbably came back from the dead and managed to break into the dreamworld of second life, (maybe as a skeleton avatar), he'd probably have a ton of things to lampoon. and in this same spirit i thought to myself, if la catrina was going to be in second life and ultra fashionable, she might very well come back incarnated as a goth loli.
i was aided in this little exercise in vanity and clothes-madness by the *cue screaming fangirls* ever magnificent munchflower zaius, who made this incredible skin and gave it to me as a gift (stops typing to throw myself to the ground grovelling). i also went mad when i saw this incredible dress, the Aura dress from Violent Seduction. likewise the shoes from Cutea Benelli/Grim bros are freaking amazing....
gothloli la catrina juana wears:
Sugar Skulls & Roses Upper & Lower Body tattoos (black and white)
Aura set by Violent Seduction
Charmant Raven sleeves, top, and pantaloons by Nightshade Blacklist
lollo estremista ballet heels by Grim Bros
Alice black hair by Deviant Kitties
Trophy hat no. 2- The SkullCake by i love 13
Gypsy hoop earrings and Sugar Skull necklace by Kunstkammer
fascinator paris 1 hat by Nonna Hedges
Sylvan China White sugar skull skin (custom--a gift from munchflower <3 *fangirl* ) by Nomine
i have never been a neko before. until now. and naturally i wanted to be a pre-columbian styled neko too.
i actually would never have bothered but i was looking for something else and found the los muertos neko set--roses and skulls, totally up my alley. and the hybrid prod waspoid skin is one of my very faves, though i don't wear it as often as i should.
pre-colombian neko juana wears:
his embrace black by self expressions hybrid prod waspoid skin female by hybrid productions los muertos neko set by subtle submission realia hair by gauze skull nose piercing by avz dead doll eyes by deviant kitties cenobitie's claws by tekeli'li rivet kitteh boots by dv8 mayan dream tattoos (modded white) by garden of ku skull collar by mad about...
at temple of bubastis at lyre @ lyre sim listening to "mass for four voices" from secretgardenproject.com
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.
mesoamerican myths say that the world has lived through 5 epochs, or suns. we are currently in the fifth sun. the previous suns ended in horrible calamities, and the people who inhabited those older suns were imperfect. in this sun, quetzacoatl mixed up bones of the ancients with his blood and with corn, to create humans. but there needed to be a god to sacrifice to create the new sun.
the gods assembled, but nobody really wanted to do it. one brash young and handsome god, Tecciztecatl, could not summon the courage to throw himself into the flames.
one of the gods offered himself for the sacrifice-nanauatl, an old, ugly, emaciated old man. as he burned he rose in the sky and became the sun.
tecciztecatl was ashamed and jumped in the fire next, and he became the moon, shining but paler.
this was what i was thinking as i shopped at grim bros and seeing a floating fire, could not resist. because after all, according to the mayan calendar, this fifth sun is set to end in 2012....who will sacrifice themselves to create the sixth sun?
nenetlxochil wears:
c+c kadath hair burnt bones skin and hearst dress by nomine bloody rawbones bracelets by retox dia de los muertos shoes and archaic skull choker by grim bros to live and to die tattoos by bakersfield kidd skull ear spike by mad about skull nose ring avz hair and tail feathers by i sort of forgot at the moment.
today (april 26th) i talked to bakersfield kidd, who made the glorious "to live and to die" tattoos. it's a tiny world, i recognized his name because i saw his picture on achariya's flickr photostream. so i saw he had a flickr account and left him a note. he was really nice, and told me something interesting--he hadn't sold very many of those sets. which i can't imagine, because they look so freaking cool.
they are my very favorite tattoos as i said, and have significant memories associated with them too. i was wearing them in the strange citizens post on strange pixels, that grady made, which was a very very huge honor for me.
bakersfield left a really nice comment on this outfit. it was one of the ones i wore for dia de los muertos, which is really like my christmas. i was standing outside the katatonik store, having just bought her dia de los muertos dress, with the matching jewelry by violet voltaire, a custom burnt bones skin made by munchflower of nomine, shoes by gfield, hair by deviant kitties, raven pennyflower hat by nonna hodges, and mask by i forgot right at this second.
another notable event where i also wore them was when i was being sacrificed at my dia de los muertos party, but that's another story. (both these pictures were taken by my friend zorena deckard.)
cihuateotl: in aztec belief, the souls of women who died in childbirth accompanied the souls of dead warriors and followed the sun as it journeyed across the sky. they also became hummingbirds, after a certain period of time. i am mildly obsessed with mesoamerican culture. there are lots of little survivals of it in the present day here and there--for example while pregnant my mother called me in a panic because there would be a lunar eclipse and she begged me to tie a bunch of keys to my waist to protect the child.
and i have quite a fixation on the the cihuateteo. it's a personal reason mostly--i had a post partum hemorrhage and almost died when my daughter was born. so i like to think that if i had died i would have been a hummingbird, or perhaps even now escorting the souls of the dead soldiers who died in iraq.......but i digress.
this is one thing about second life--you can be whatever you want, and encode however many layers of meaning you wish, in the choices of the clothes you wear. and so the whole cihuateotl thing is one fashion tic i keep i coming back to over and over.
grady honored me much by photographing me dressed as a cihuateotl in a strange citizens post on strange pixels. for that one i wore the outfit on the right, which was sort of showgirlish. indeed, i wore a feather headdress and tailfeathers from a showgirl outfit, along with an aztec styled crown, loincloth and top from the Oshun set (more on that later) and Eris boots by Dark Eden, tinted ghungroo (ankle bells, like what yaqui deer dancers wear) by Zaara, and skull choker and earspikes by Mad about. I wore the Lost Gloom Stalker skin that i adore.
i have since worn several versions of the cihuateotl outfit. the elements though are the same:
To Live and To Die Dia de los Muertos themed tats, which are brilliant, and my personal faves or the Mayan Dream tats by Garden of Ku
the burnt bones skin by nomine, though later i was able to get a custom modification of that skin so that the face was less skull-like, with black lipstick
Skull nose ring by AVZ
Cenobite bracers by Tekel'li
a hummingbird emitter, which i thought was so brilliant and cool
Cortech Macahuitl and dagger, in obsidian and cyber versions. (by the freaking brilliant Beezle Warburton)
sometimes i wear a cyberheart, which would have replaced the one i lost via sacrifice. [B] the Heart
Needful Things Death Raven skirt
There are tons more of things that i have worn in my capacity of cihuateotl, but i suppose i will list them separately....................................
Uncredited items of clothing: hair: Chill by AVZ, Anabel by Deviant Kitties mekahooves and cellular pants by AVZ Vampire trick pants and goth boots by Susie Camisole from the Gamine girl set Fishnet shirt from ..... Leeloo noir shirt from Nocturnal threads
mictlancihuatl is the lady of the underworld, mictlan. she is normally depicted as a skeleton, and elements of her cult have survived in the worship of santa muerte, a skeleton "saint" who is worshipped by many of the poor and also the somewhat naughty.
i do not mean to take on her fearsome mantle but whenever i wear the bone dresses (there are several versions, with different names) by cutea benelli, i feel like her, or at least a shadow of her.
in this version: skirt, shoes, monocle, wings, top, gloves from wireweb faerie dress by grim bros. arm elements and hat from bone dress grim bros hands on dress grim bros candybleedingtat and wild woman hair by MiaSnow Clownskin crossed out bloody bonehead bracelets by retox
there is something so very perverse and fascinating to think of an ancient cult surviving into a harsh world rendered mystically sterile by high technological advances. mesoamerican mythology has always been my bag, and it obsesses me almost to imagine my avatar as an undead representation of various mythical figures or folklore legends.
today thanks to XStreet SL, (formerly known as SLexchange) i can mimic one of my favorite deities, tezcatlipoca, the god of the smoking mirror.
it amused me to pretend i needed a sacrificial victim, and with this pretext, i wandered the city, peeping in nooks and crannies, and even breaking and entering, in that strange SL non-criminal exploratory sorta way.
the priestess is wearing:
skin: :: Hybrid Prod :: Skin : Shaded Black Waspoid (F) hair: EMO-tions Maya hair (rings option on) belt & pants: Digit Darkes & Synthetic Dreams Lots a BotsBelt (gold) and Leather Studded heart underpants skirt: +*susie*+ Vampire Skirt shirt & leg silks: Ronjas Virtual Attire--Golden Snake jacket: <<>> Gamine girl camisole bracelets: !Retox! Bloody BoneHead bracelets bone armlets & necklace: Grim Bros/Cutea Benelli Jolly Roger bracelet, Bone dress upper arm, LPG Skull n bone collar S Dagger: Cortech Cyber Dagger v3.0 hair rose: GF-- Rose hairpin suede (wine) nose piercing: AVZ Skull Nose Piercing earrings: +SPICA+ Suicide Earrings boots: Dark Eden Thetis Boots pose: Body Language by SLC Haruka Modeling Poses set.
