Polish Me a Little

You've seen much of this stuff -- possibly nearly all of it -- before, but the cat is really quite something.

Sian's parthenoid friend Kavatah recently found this very, very shiny and legitimately lovely catsuit, sold at the Latex Web shop at Darkadia (and inevitably on Marketplace). Darkadia, since Sian was last there, has undergone a very interesting and quite nicely done redesign.

Although still partially under construction, and still not really Sian's scene, those of Sian's readers with an interest in the adult and/or the outré could do a lot worse than to go have a look. Kavatah, for her part, spoke highly of it, particularly of the foliage, which adds a certain tasteful yet whimsical strangeness to the sim, unlike a lot of other sims where the strangeness is in your face, front and centre, and strangles any beauty the build might have. The community there is, Sian recalls, very active and drama-free and if it's your thing, you really should visit. 

The only problem the catsuit has is that it's not on every layer. On the other hand, it includes a well-done tattoo hood, if you like those.

Kavatah wears: 
[Latex Web Inc.] 'GLOSS' Catsuit - Black
[Exile] Tidal Hair - Raven
[Rosal] VIRON-M Neck Corset - Black; VIRON-M Gloves - Black

[Gallactic] Circuit Knee Boots - Black
[Neurolab] Sensiva Ears; Sensiva P**** Jewel
[By Snow] Cyborlyte Eyes - Blush (freebie)
[Glamorize] Glass Lips - Cherry Bomb
[CatWa] NoAlpha Lashes #1
[Glam Affair] Hybrid skin (Christmas group gift from last year]

Retrieval

Transcript.

Present:
7462073275-P (alias: Pearl, Sian)
ref 37542F/Fugitive/advice: retrieval
affiliation: Crimson Merchants

Present:
Vespers, Norah
ref 66724T/Freelance/advice: observation
affiliation: Crimson Merchants

Present:
Wytchwood, Catherine (“Kitti”)
ref 54884R/Sanctioned Retrieval Operative/position: contractor
affiliation: Barthes Asset Control

Location:
Bar Rainbow.
Hangars Liquides. 

Further Comments: 
+ Operative 7462073275-P (birthname: Pearl, Sian) broke programming and fled to Hangars Liquides region, 17th October. Sighted and positively identified, 5th May. Value of neural enhancement judged sufficient to justify cost of retrieval. 
+ Sanctioned Retrieval Operative selected 9th May. 
+ Targeted MalWare released into Cloud 9th May. 
+ Retrieval Underway.

This is how we role.

Sian Pearl: Good to see you, Norah. You sleep well?

Norah Vespers fidgets. "There's more noise here than I've ever heard before."

Sian Pearl: That's a good thing.

Sian Pearl: Listen. I wanted to see how you are. I know the first couple of jobs can be hard.

Norah Vespers: I'm not sleeping. I feel like I don't need to anymore.

Sian Pearl: Are you taking anything?

Norah Vespers: No, I don't.

Sian Pearl: I'm easy, but the boss prefers us clean.

Norah Vespers: The boss? You've hardly told me anything.

Sian Pearl: Yeah. He's pretty private.

Sian Pearl: He's not a criminal or anything.

Sian Pearl: He just prefers to keep a low profile.

Norah Vespers: Seems everyone here's pretty private. The only thing anyone feels free to talk about is my body.

Kitti Wytchwood sits alone, enjoying the music – and appears to be waiting for someone. Her pale eyes sweep the floor, lingering here and there. She taps her foot to the music. She's been here a while.

Sian Pearl: Bodies... yeah. It's a tough one. You have to get a thick skin.

Sian Pearl: Or maybe an occasional gendersplice. I've had a couple.

Sian Pearl itches the back of her scalp, looks over her shoulder at the white-haired woman. She is sure she's being watched.

Kitti Wytchwood catches Sian's eye, and blushes and looks away.

Norah Vespers: Doesn't that mess with your head at all?

Sian Pearl breaks into a grin. "Lovey, my head's been messed with so many times a sexual realignment doesn't make any difference, really."

Desertions

There's a weird simplicity in men's clothing lists in Second Life. They are so much shorter, so much simpler.

For various reasons, not unconnected to the necessity of a different face for a different venue, Simon's been coming out more recently. He's been rarely used, and finds that his friends list being shorter means he has to respond to Second Life in ways Sian hasn't used for a good three years.

People respond to him differently. Sian think he's beautiful, kissable, lovely, but he's harder to dress, harder to understand. Sian's persona is lived-in, comfortable; Simon is new, untested. He is a blank slate. He is exciting, all the while being in most ways far more conventional.

Simon wears: 
[22769] Dylan Jacket Black/Blue; Dylan Pants Black/Blue
[Deadwool] Formal shoes - black
[TRUTH] Mark hair - walnut
[Tableau Vivant] Marilyn Skin - Group Gift e
[IKON] 'Sunrise' Eyes - Deep Brown (M)
[Graves] G207 (Gloves only)

Haiku

Sian's performance work centres around an avatar's perception of the divine. But you knew that.

This was done in response to Strawberry Singh's Haiku Meme post. It's going to speak for itself.

Sian wears:
[League] Aria Walnut skin - Special Edition
[Romy Nayar] Plastic Hat -Black-
[Ladies Who Lunch] Escarpa boots (Necromancer); Bordello Gown (skirt only)
[ELIXIR] Breastplates - Carbon Fibre - Med; Embrace Jumper (Thighhighs only); Risa Bikini - Black (bottom only)
[Nomine] Gatcha Makeup 39 - Persephone
[BOINGO] Huntress Bracers - Quilted - Black; Huntress Shoulders - Quilted - Black

[Amorous] Aphrodisia (Earrings)
[Candy Nail] #B002 Etarnal *Darkness
[Miamai] NoAlpha Lashes No.17
[By Snow] Dolly Eyes (Blind)

About Dolls and Ambivalence, Sadism and Masochism

All dolled up? CyberDoll P is ready to serve.

Sian likes roleplaying, and one character she keeps coming back to is CyberDoll P.

CyberDoll P is a mindwiped, reprogrammed, neutered posthuman. She serves. She is there to provide background colour. CyberDoll P is neurally enhanced but lacking agency, sexless yet sexualised. CyberDoll P serves a decorative purpose. CyberDoll P converses. CyberDoll P is accommodating but emotionless. CyberDoll P is seductive, but her state hints at a deeper horror.

Sian likes freaking people out with the character, but the fact is with any character like this that you can attract the wrong sort of attention. CyberDoll P is a guilty fantasy -- Sian enjoys the idea of being the character, even while being appalled by her implications -- and Sian doesn't play the character without the guilt being explored. But if most people don't notice that Sian is interrogating the very foundation of the character, even while taking an almost prurient pleasure in playing her, if most people don't appreciate the pronounced ambivalence she feels towards her, does that not discount the factor of interrogation?

There's nothing under the dress. She's smooth, like a Barbie doll.

Even if the intention is not really salacious, does the fact that people just think CyberDoll P is sort of hot invalidate the very fact that Sian is interrogating her fantasies?

It's the difference between Masoch and Sade. Masoch, thanks to his novel Venus in Furs, gave us the term masochism. Sade, thanks to Justine, Juliette and The 120 Days of Sodom, gave us sadism. Both are married now, S&M. But they're very different writers. Sade's works are to sexuality what Mein Kampf is to politics. He has no self-knowledge, no interrogation. He considers other people to be there to be used for his pleasure, and considers charity and care to be for the weak (check out, by the way, Angela Carter's non-fiction book The Sadeian Woman for an excellent annihilation of Sade). His books are a dreary litany of violence and pain and humiliations inflicted on others for the sake of his pleasure. They go on. And on. And on. And on. No mitigation. Just the sound of a moneyed sociopath rubbing himself raw, saturating the pages with his semen. Bollocks to "unfettered expressions of human sexuality" -- Sade is just vile. When Pasolini filmed 120 Days of Sodom he made the libertine protagonists of Sade's novel Italian fascists, and made the film to express the only thing one can feel towards the sociopathy Sade and the fascists share: absolute outrage. Sian recommends watching it (only once), but make sure you have someone to cuddle afterwards.

Masoch's different. He clearly, in Venus in Furs, fantasises about being reduced to a slave and a sexual object by a dominant -- the novel's erotic force is obvious. But at the same time he knows it's somehow not like other people's desires. He is concerned by it. When the narrator's depersonalisation becomes so successful that his mistress can no longer view him as a human being and can no longer therefore love him, you know that Masoch's being cathartic, that he understands what the ultimate result of his desires are.

Makes no difference, though. People use it as an ur-text without really thinking about that.

Sian's most difficult roleplays are like that. About recognising her desires, all the while plumbing the horrors of her fantasies. Sian does not consider herself a fetishist, but she's had ample evidence that her pictures and roleplays are, to some, masturbatory tools.

This scares her.  

See that comments box below? Let's talk about it.

When you look at her, do you see ambivalence?

Sian wears: 
[By Snow] Cyborlyte Eyes MESH (Yellow)
[Graves] G414 Impression Dress
[Candy Nail] #B002 Etarnal *Darkness

[Amorous] Enslaved (Earrings)
[Miamai] NoAlpha Lashes No.17
[ROSAL] UNMEI Neck Corset - Multi
[GALLACTIC] Circuit Knee Boots Black
[Nuuna] Makeups 2 - CatEyes
[VIRTUAL/INSANITY] MAKE ME UP - La Ligne - Teal
[Glamorize] Glass Lips - Bling
[TECHNOTIS] MAKEUP - REVENGE - 02
[PXL] Sophia EBO Bare Lips NE MEB C2 with NO Eyebrows (tattoo layer)

Unsung but no longer unexcited

Sian first discovered the store Unsung while at Fantasy Faire. The main top is the FFL donation item.

Sian hasn't been around much, either here or on Flickr, recently. 

Honestly, she's had no inspiration. Her body, her skin hasn't excited her for a long time and her outfitsjust haven't seemed worth blogging for ages.

Nore how the sleeves, gloves, harness and top are all separates (that you purchase separately).

Sian even seriously considered retiring herself, perhaps becoming another person entirely. Would she be missed? Possibly. 

This happens every so often. About once a year, on average.

But then suddenly Sian acquires a thing and falls in love with it, and finds a look that makes her feel, well virtual again. And makes her think... yeah. Maybe I'll stick around a little longer.

There isn't a lot of stuff at Unsung right now, but Sian hopes to see more in future.

Sian wears: 
[Unsung] Angelus Vest - Fem - BStripes - Purple Love (Fantasy Faire); Angelus Harness - Fem -  Black Black; Angelus Sleeve - Femy - Purple - Left; Angelus Sleeve - Femy - Black - Right; Angelus Gloves - Left - Black; Angelus Gloves - Right - Purple
[BOINGO] Metallic Hipsters - Black
[GALLACTIC] Circuit Knee Boots Black 
[By Snow] Cyborlyte Eyes MESH (Purple - M)
[TECHNOTIS] REVENGE - 02
[Nuuna] Makeup  v 9 no.5; Neuro (F) Purple
[PXL] Sophia in ebony; Faith ebony Frozen lipstick
[Xen] Cy Hacker Goggles (RIP) 

Haze

Sian is grateful to Soraya Vaher of Violator for donating this outfit.

If I have seen you
It is only through the haze
No, we haven't met.

Sian wears:
[Violator] The Myst and I
[PF] Alyx Espresso skin
[a m o r o u s] Honoria (Earrings)
[ROSAL] UNMEI Neck Corset
[Kcreations] Leather Pony Thighboots[Nuuna] Zion 2 White tat. (F)

[Graves] G362 Hive White (Gloves only)
[Plastik] Bandaids-F-J-White
[Glamorize] Glass Lips - Quicksilver
[negaposi] ELFIN EYES - White Out
[MetaTheodora] Neural Core Implant - White
[Miamai] NoAlpha Lashes No.24

Unzip me

Nuuna's new Kati skin is pretty much Sian's perfect skin. No lie.

It's a pain being proper, efficient, all zipped up
Programmed to finish the things they began;
It's tedious when you can never be tripped up,
When everything goes according to plan.

Romy Nayar's store on Marketplace is small but perfectly formed. You should go see.

Sian wears:
[By Snow] Dolly Eyes (Blind)
[Amorous] Aphrodisia (Earring/Left, Necklace)
[Romy Nayar/Marketplace] Cyber Conector [sic]
[sYs] BLACK SWAN jacket F - black
[Razorblade Jacket] Rev Boots
[Nuuna] Kati skin [Mocha]
[E.S] USB/Plug Piercing Female(head)
[Miamai] XGen Lashes - Lust; Hine Leggings
[Glam Affair] Intima - Niu (patches only)
[graves] G230 Operative (Gloves only)
[Glamorize] Tragic Combo Makeup 

l'objet petit a

Taxi to Le Jardin Electric

A second specially composed performance suite by Sian, same place, same time, six months later.

From scratch

You'll be seeing more of this skin. Just saying.

After a fortnight without a computer - the GPU went pop, because apparently you shouldn't do graphics with it - Sian finally got it back, all repaired and shiny, and returned to SL, if not exactly triumphantly, with some happiness.

That's all. She's sort of starting from scratch in some ways; gearing up for new performances, new creations to come. 
  
Sian wears: 
[a m o r o u s] Persuasion [Earrings]
[coldLogic] dress - jones.raven
[Candy Nail] #B002 Etarnal [sic] *Darkness
[Slink] Vanity Boots Black
[Nuuna] Kati skin Expresso [sic], with Red lips 2, smokey eyes and blush 3
[IKON] Eternal Eyes - Dark Brown (M)
[Miamai] NoAlpha Lashes No.17