this could be a case for Mulder and Scully

These last few days have been...fun...

First week or so, bad head was bad. As much as I loathe that that's still a factor, it is. It's annoying beyond reason, but it's still something I have to Deal with, find coping management skills for, or try to deny. The usual nonsense that is my life.

When I finally got around to opening hair demos--last night--I spent three hours posing, trying on different demos, and taking pictures. And now I can't...
find...
a single...
one. And it's eating my brain.

You can find the first part--well, barely a part, but whatever--here, and this is...part two of likely two, because I never got past a few demos and Hair Fair closed. {{Insert from the Editrix before publication--this was meant to go out on June 6th, but...I become less capable by the hour. It's now...later.}}



Yeah, well. Enough of the wee violins. On to actual hair coverage.



(It doesn't help that the second run of pics did not exactly...work well. This for instance. Got a pose, got a background, hopped on to find the next hair...watched my head rotate ninety degrees. This is actually the back of the hair I was wearing. Unexpected.)



Moving on. This is Navy+Copper's "Dream" style (for head L, chest M). It's in the forty-sixth color on the hair (sort of a muted navy-ish tone), and the twenty-second color on the bangs. It's not rigged to specific bodies or heads, but it has nine different sizes for the head shape, and nine sizes again for the chest. And this has definite potential.

You can find Navy+Copper in the Blonde region at Hair Fair.

{{Again, note from the Editrix: no, you can't. But if you like the style, and didn't grab a demo of it from the Hair Fair Update group, drop a note to Gia Pawpad, ask when it'll turn up in the main store.}}



Next up, no_MATCH. I wasn't feeling the first style in the box, but the second one, no_PROOF, I liked. It comes both with and without attached bobble braids.

You can find no.match in the Redhead region.

{{Again, no, you can't, your best bet is checking the mainstore. If you haven't run across them before, they are THE shop in town for unisex styles. Nearly everything they make they show on female and male models in the product photos.}}



Finally we're up to the /TRUTH/ Collective, with Mochi. (This time out, the 'Collective' portion is their companion store, Litterbug. They're in the same building is TRUTH hair is in.) I didn't count the colors, tiring day (because these were reshoots), but I do know it's a shade from the Jewels hair HUD for the main hair, with a separate tint for the bangs.

The HUD for this style has the standard Colors and Streaks sections, with a third tab for the hair ribbons. My only complaint about this style is the hair ribbons. The color swatches are vivid, the dots precise, until they're applied. Then...they seem to fade. The navy swatch, the color I'm showing here, looked navy on the accessories tab. Once on, though, those ribbons are closer to a rock blue, or a pale dusty slate?

And I'm not saying that's a one hundred percent for perception, either--I was running with an old ringlight, and while the larger ring's a bright actinic white, the three interior lights, well...I forget what tones I picked. So it could be the lighting for my shots, not the color application in toto.


And I wanted a shot from the back, so I went to the Grayscales HUD. I'd forgotten the end section of that HUD departs black and white for deep, shadowed hues. So this is one from there, the one that goes black/lilac/black. Barely past shoulder-length, but still, a fun, charming style overall.
This year, /TRUTH/ Collective's in the Brunette region.

{{And for the last time, no, their Hair Fair booth's folded up and disappeared. But the style should be back at Truth's mainstore soon.}}

And that's...really that...for this year, I guess. Seeya.

things are getting strange, I'm starting to worry

Hey, guess what I forgot? (I mean, apart from posting on the blog, finding a working layout for the blog, gutting inventory of at least 25,000 more items, getting more done in the Garden, decorating the mansion, and/or fixing the haunt...)



Yep. Hair Fair. Which, yes, is opening on the 30th, and also yes, was completely forgotten by the me. Void stars.

I only have half the demos pulled down, haven't unpacked a single one, and why yes, am adding emotional panic over not having all the demos open and sorted before now--



Yeah, well...I'll just have to get on that, I suppose.

RULES FOR THIS YEAR SINCE I'M ALREADY STARTING OFF BEHIND:

• I'm not covering all of the offerings. There is not enough time with a fully working brain.
• I'm only posting the ones that I a) think look good on ME, or b) are really innovative and different from the rest.
• If I run out of time/get tired/get overly stressed for other reasons, I may just grab the stylist's product image and post that.
• To avoid any more event stress, I'll link to coverage of the gifts available rather than try on everything myself.

And I'll try not to completely lose my mind in the meantime. Aaaaaagh.

I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out

So...it's been a while. Ms. Kalia Anatine sent this out today:

🌙 A gentle reminder from your neighborhood witch:
The tricksters are out causing chaos, tossing shady little links like cursed breadcrumbs. Please double‑check every name before you tap... only Melora, Kalia, Dreamsphere, Xartashah, and Yasmina will ever call things out safely in the group.

For now, no posting links in the circle while the mischief is high.
Stay safe, stay clever, and keep your wards up, my dears. ✨

In other quick news: guess what I didn't have from /Vae Victis\? And guess what's on sale today? The Lamashtu Armored Chestpiece! It's currently (as of 26 Aprille, 2026 at least) on sale for L$99 in the Marketplace. Run!

Me, well, I have other things I wanted to say, and I'll get to some, likely, but this needed to go out NOW--and I'd already started with Ms. Anatine's message for the Moss and Luna Group. (Which, btw, if any of you aren't in--and you like the things I've posted, mentioned, or had out from places like Noctis, STATIC and Candle and Cauldron, among others--then you really should join Moss and Luna's in-world group, for their weekend sales, their group gifts, their whimsical and marvelous hunts, and their aesthetics. Just sayin'.

drowning in the silence

Second post of the day, because I have been gone a WHILE--

And this one's more random. From a message I just sent my partner:

[3:57 PM] 26 April, 2026: Emilly [VOID]: I so want to ask for a land forms kit from Fanatik that now has PBR textures, but I'm still in a tailspin after coming back, things haven't evened out, and that was AFTER I apologized for going radio silent months before.

[3:59 PM] 26 April, 2026: Emilly [VOID]: The animal wounded retreats for imagined safety, and it never works out, and I do it anyway. 50% getting tired of saying the same things, 50% not wanting to "burden" other people (and yes, gosh, THANK you for that one, mother, you've been dead a third of my life now, get the F̸̥͍̭̮͛̉̈́̏̒̑̕͜#̶̧̳̦̤̩̥̮̳̖͈͑͠C̸͇̹̺͓͎̦̘̳̼̭͇̫̳͕̋̅́̆͐͛̅̒̄̌͗̆̕ͅK̸͓̜̘̤̼̮͎̜̠͙̈́͝ out of my brain, thx). I am bad at all the things.

[4:00 PM] 26 April, 2026: Emilly [VOID]: I love you still. I will try to be in touch more often, it's just...hard. Everything is hard right now. But I will perservere.

I will, it's just...still a bit thrown from life in general at present. Pain levels spiking, check, still struggling to get ONE new prescription since my optometrist changed his policies from "grudgingly updating my prescription to one new pair of glasses" to "Sorry, no, we don't give out pupillary distance unless you purchase at least one frame through us"...

How much are those frames? Well, the "cheap" trays start at $120 per pair...



Oh, and for the gut-punch vicious irony, if I hadn't mentioned it before: lost my last client back in February, didn't know it until I fixed the comp enough to log back in. And I am using "lost" in its full sense, here--the motiver behind the screen passed away. Meeting nearly every week for eleven years...I miss him. I didn't expect his passing to be so destabilizing...but grief's like that at times, it sneaks up on us.

And with that, I think my courtesan days are finally over. My heart's just not in it. I guess I'm a Duchess full-time now, which won't be much of a shift, honestly--I pretty much am done, at least this year, with casual romps, I'm just keeping to the core group of loves. Three of which are pretty much perpetually offline...

RIGHT, this is getting dire. ANYWAY. I'll likely finish the post before this later tonight, 'cos I just crashed for the SEVENTH GORRAM TIME--

So that's it for now. Working on making OBS mah bish, because it's currently drop-kicked me into the basement, cackling maniacally. Bah. But I really want to do at least three vids, one of which should be for the upcoming five-year anniversary for Gearhaven.

(Did I not mention that? Yeah. Five years we've been on the grid. Time really flies when you're stressed beyond all comprehension, or something. But it's had its moments I would not exchange for all the perfumes of Arabia...

And I need to fix the blog layout. A-friggin'-gain...

All right, all right, that's it. Be well, be safe. Gearhaven out.

now there's a fire in the speakers and blood on the master tapes

I know. I know. The blog template still isn't fixed. I'm scattershot on answering messages. And yet, I'm asking for help to get my computer up and running, so I can finally get back to SL, because other options haven't panned out.

I'm cringing asking. But I'm asking anyway.

Help if you can. Pass it on if you can't. And thanks.

spoiled all, spoiled all

Sooooo....been a hot minute, huh? Comp's still down. You forget how much memory is tied to machine these days. Passwords. Financial data. Appointments. Programs.

In my case, a ton of books, music, and graphics as well...All locked up inside a dead box.

I am not best pleased with 2026 so far.

the head is only a dangerous dead weight

Day after day...night after night...I can feel all my selves slipping away. If it were just the grid, I could maybe fight it, but I ask the girls if they've ordered the power supply yet, and I'm being given various shades of no. "We're looking at a couple models", they've said. Then that became "No, not yet". One of them is hoping to catch a friend for "troubleshooting".

I have no computer and I must scream.

And in RL (more or less), the world is on fire. And all I can do is watch, and send emails to my Congressional reps, and mend. There is an insane level of mending that built up before my carpal tunnel surgery. And after...well, I'm still sewing everything by hand.

So my my But that's enough of that, I'm getting more bored of talking about it than I am of talking about the eternal headache. I just...want...time...to breathe.

But hey, Vibes is on Tubi, so it's not all bad.

kill your pride, turn your fear to a weapon

Not doin' well. Had to unpack a deliberately reinforced line of embroidery, ended up jabbing the seam ripper through the fabric tree times. Now I have to reinforce the remaining threads, mend the new holes, and probably track down a smallish patch of some sort to cover it all.GAH.

So.

Channels keeping me sane:

BigGaming64 (If One Topic at a Time didn't exist, he'd be THE most wholesome YouTuber.)

fastpassfacts (All animatronic history, all the time.)

WhyJordie
(All mechaniphobia content, all the time.)

HordesofHorror (Horror reviews, both film and books, much like SpookyAstronauts.)

KingKey (Supportive drag king moments.)

And one bonus single vid, P.M Seymour reading a Tumblr post on bees (Every point you need to defeat vegan arguments about honey.)

did you just say you're finished? didn't know we started

So...hey...

I still haven't fixed the blog, beginning to despair of that happening before 2027...and I might have enough images formatted and linkable from the "Lillith's Thorns" Medici Collar shoot; and I am going to review what I can long-distance, but...that will be the last with shots of me. (Though, won't lie, tempted to see if I can inveigle Justine and/or Lucifer as models. Haven't asked yet, it's just idle pondering for the moment.)

Why? Well, because my comp's power supply toasted. Rotten timing. We're trying to see if we have enough to get one this month; if we don't, it may mean February--or longer--



AND I AM ALREADY LOSING MY GODDAMN MIND--

But it's okay. I will get through this.It is going to be mental updating every thing from my phone, though.
Oh, and for all the (non-American) friends who've asked:



All caught up? Fab. Because 2026 is shaping up to be a razorblade rollercoaster of psychopathy!



Indeed.

I'm in the ruins too, I know the wreckage so well (part one)

Okay.

Okay. Okay okay okay.

This needs to get done and the past two months in tailspin DO NOT COUNT. Okay? Okay.

I'm saying that a lot.

This also may run for more than two entries.



Also, I want to put a pin in this one to revisit later, because I forgot I tinted a pair orange and then took a bunch of shots in blue latex. Keep this on the back burner for now.

Also this one (from the same set in blue):



I know the image quality is bad, but just--put a pin in this for later, too? Because I did find a problem on the horns! (It's me. The problem is me. Not even kidding, because I fractured another mesh item from an entirely different maker in the same way yesterday.)

So. The first set was the blue and gold, and I took a bunch, and then--forgot where I put them? So next up was a few days later, and the image below is straight out of the box:



No modding, as-is standard (non-PBR; there are both PBR and non-PBR textured versions in the package), just picked one and hit add.

And then....things get a little...vague? I have about twelve pictures, in assorted outfits uploaded to my image host, and maybe six different half-completed entries? But I know I took a few shots while shopping at Moss and Luna:



...and I think that's either the PBR version (maybe?? PBR is strange for me, it works, but it's always weirdly highlighted in a pale, milky-blue shine??), or I've done something weird to them. Because of course I would.

So then I went through the pics I'd uploaded two months back. Like this one:



--which shows the HUD for the set. (And yes, there are two versions, the PBR HUD, and the standard HUD.) Near as I can tell, this is also straight out of the box, very little if any adjusting.

I'll go into some features in part two, which I'm hoping to get out tomorrow? In the meantime, I kept feeling like I needed to retake pictures, or take more pictures, or find the...I suppose "perfect" background...I don't know.



Maybe it makes no sense. And I wanted to say more. There's more pictures. Void stars, I have more than enough frames. This run of--unfortunately, only three--I only caught the mistake in post-processing--I thought I'd moved the horns back enough to not protrude, but instead, I gave myself a second set of eyebrows.

Anyway. There's more. Also, watching Pontypool while trying to figure out what to say to type this? Maybe not my best choice.

((Insert from the Editrix: I'm going to go post this as the first entry in coverage of, but the entry I'm going to post after was actually written weeks ago, and I just want to get SOMETHING out today because kicking myself in the back for the last two, possibly two-plus months, is starting to leave a dent.))



((Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.))

((Oh, and you can still find them on the back wall at Vae Victis' main store. Set you back by L$500, still, I believe, which again, is a reasonable amount for horns this adaptable. Ta!))

I'm in the ruins too, I know the wreckage so well (part two)

((The aforementioned entry from before yesterday's. Probably going to cover some of the same ground. All right, carry on.))

[[HOOOOOLLLD EVERYTHING! This was one of the drafts I put together back in...August?? Hard to tell, because it's listed NOW as October 11th. Go figure!! So, THIS was technically written BEFORE. Okay? Everyone caught up? Yay.]]



Oh no. Background alpha. Okay, hold a tic...

So, straight out of the box, the "Lucent" Ribboned horns, in Standard. Biiiig antlers.

Don't get me wrong, they're impressive as they are, but they feel like my skull would cave in. So, a little bit of Y, a little bit of overall shrinkage...



Ah. Okay, that's....wait. The eyebrows have gone weird...



NOT EYEBROWS. I'm dim. That's the protruding bone ridge in front. Wild.



(This is also called, the backgrounds will shift back and forth because Em Cannot Decide Things...)

This isn't going to be my usual deep dive--I'll get a good capture of the HUD, because there are a LOT of options--because this is only half the set. There's also a PBR version.



And same thing, right out of the box, save for that odd, pearlescent coloration that--at least for me--looks the same on EVERYTHING that's PBR.

Find then on the wall here for L$500!

I go fall down nao.