In Which Sion is Free At Last

In creating a male counterpart for no Lindens at all, Sian refused to compromise, making sure that not one single part of the avatar, even the AO, cost anything.

The skin was the hardest thing to find. The best Sian's so far been able to find for Sion is the Ian skin which is currently on the board at Tellaq. She likes the face, but has issues with the oily bodybuilder chest.

The Menstuff Lounge has a good sixty or more gifts, but most of those are pretty basic. One highlight is sf designs' Gothic Explorer set that includes shoes, a (silly) hat and several outfit options, of which Sion is only wearing part.



Sion wears:
Shirt, belt, shoes: [sf design] Gothic Explorer (Menstuff Lounge gift, current) L$0
Trousers: [Elixir] Hextile Pants (Squirrel'd Away Hunt Gift, June) L$0
AO: [Oracul] Basically Boy (modded, offered free in May) L$0
Skin, Eyes: [Tellaq] Ian (Midnight Mania gift, current) L$0
Shape: [Eclectic Equations HQ] Sion L$0

In Which Sian Makes Herself Really Uncomfortable

"Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves." - George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power... We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites." - Orwell

"We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science." - Orwell

Sian and Sion wear:
Outfit: [Defectiva] Oppressive Force - Blackheart L$500

Sian wears:
Boots: [Abyss] Stompers Black L$200
Eyes: sian's testcard eyes (Sian's own work, IM her in-world if you want some)

Sion wears:
Boots: [Black Cat Bones] His Dark Future (Dark Future Hunt Gift, defunct) L$0

Note: The outfit is designed for men. The version Sian's wearing has been modified.

Sian, you should know, is about as left-liberal-vegetarian-tree-hugger-pacifist as you can get. But sometimes, for the sake of role-playing, or pretend, or hallowe'en, or just trying it on because SL isn't real, an avatar can dress up, and sometimes you dress up as something evil.

Some avatars dress up as devils, criminals, or some other monster. Sian (and Sion) dressed up as one of the worst things she could think of.

But then, role-playing and fiction are like that, aren't they? Just because we like horror movies doesn't mean we actually like watching serial killers at work, does it? Should playing at being non-specific totalitarians really mean that we approve of these things, or take them lightly?

Should it?

In Which Sian Rises to Three Challenges and Lets You Into a Secret

Sian's going to let you into a secret: when she first joined Second Life, she wanted, for various reasons, to make a boy avatar.

Which is why, when her display name is "Sian Pearl", her actual username is "Sion Pearl" (If you are not from the UK and/or do not know Wales, you may not know that "Sion" and "Sian" are the Welsh versions of "John" and "Jane" — they're pronounced "Shaun" and "Shaahn").

To her disappointment, Sian discovered that it is much, much harder to make a satisfying male avatar (one that doesn't look like a pimp or a drug dealer, anyway) than it is a female one. And so she gave up and reverted to being a girl, relying on the fact that no one on SL knows Sion is actually a boy's name and changing that pesky "o" to the distaff "a" as soon as Display Names entered the grid. Eventually, Sian made a male avatar, but honestly, she liked being Sian better.

After a great deal of work, however, Sian finally managed to step up and succeed with Dagmar Haiku's Change Your Gender for L$0 Challenge. This took ages and ages. Like, weeks.

Here's Sion Pearl. Sion is 30 years old, is proud to be Welsh, and finds the zombie slicers useful for Saturday nights in Newport. Sion's a bit sad that he couldn't find a nice black skin for free, but he's got some leads and might still have another go.



Shape: Sion Shape (I made this myself. If you want him, ping me and ask nicely) L$0
Skin: [Style by Kira], Drake (MENStuff hunt gift) L$0
Eyes: [Poetic Colors] Moroccan Nights Dark (Store Freebie) L$0
Hair Base: [KMADD] (MENStuff Hunt Gift) L$0
Top: [Color Me Chaos] Unisex Military Tank (Dark Future Hunt Gift) L$0
Gloves: [ELIXIR] Unisex Carbon Fibre Gloves (Hunt Gift from Christmas) L$0
Pants: [ELIXIR] Hextile Unisex Pants (Squirrel'd Away Hunt Gift) L$0
Knifey Wristband Things: [Indigo Oddities] Zombie Slicers (Dark Future Hunt Gift) L$0
Boots: [Black Cat Bones] His Dark Future (Dark Future Hunt Gift) L$0
AO: [Oracul] Basically Boy AO (no longer available, modded so as not to include that skipping animation) L$0

Shrugging with a little relief back into her accustomed form, Sian found out yesterday that her previous statement that the Dark Future Hunt was over was very much exagerrated, and that it had one day to go! Since she was home poorly, Sian, who is not normally one for hunts, scooted around the hunt locations, nabbing a good three quarters of the gifts.

Sian will no doubt blog a few gems from the hunt in the next few days, but just wants to share her clubbing kit from yesterday. Sian thinks it's hot and this is her in her house just before she went out for a dance at Club Industry.



Bodysuit: [DV8] Merciless Blood (Hunt Gift) L$0
Tattoos: [Miss Shippe's Studio] Cyborgian Inserts White L$100
Skin: [Nuuna's Skins] Astroglam L$300
Helmet: [Blue Galaxy] Panzer Helmet L$200
Boots: [Blue Galaxy] Panzer Boots L$300

Over on Flickr, Barbara Nicholls of Leezu! was challenged to see if she couldn't make an outfit that didn't frankly look daft using ten things from the Leezu! shop.

Sian has spent frankly stupid amounts of Lindens in Leezu! recently and thought, I'd like a go at that. This is what came out the other side. You've seen several of these things recently, but Sian wants to bring your attention to the Quartz glasses, which wouldn't look out of place on Lady Gaga herself... and Sian loves a bit of Gaga.



All the following items are, of course, from [Leezu!].

Boots: Courtisane Esprit de Sable oldwhite L$450
Pants: Florentine High Heel Pants (pants layer) L$480
Corset: Lea Vivendi Pants (underpants and shirt layer) L$190
Hankie: from Britpants silver L$320
Top (undershirt): Margo Jacket silver L$350
Top (jacket): Jeanne Van Dark L$450
Scarf: Miss Mara Ethno Beige L$250
Earrings: Zoee Gold L$100
Shades: Quartz Glasses v.2 L$200
Fascinator: Soraya Hat Pin L$90