It’s time to put those bitch heels on and strut the runway of annoyance again, my sartorial darlings. So, what’s the latest thing to make Skell mutter, “Oh, bitch, please,” at his computer screen?
This little gem from group chat last night, with regard to the limitations of mesh:
Skell Dagger: Sadly, it’s a limitation with mesh. It’s much harder to find shoes that work with pants when you can’t edit the pants now!
Bitch Please: I don’t have any issues finding pants and shoes that work together. Seems to me it’s not a limitation of mesh, but a limitation of ones creativity or drive to make things work together.
Skell Dagger: It’s different for guys, BP. And while I do wear heels sometimes, there is (as yet) no heeled mesh foot for men. Finding flat shoes for men that work with various pant cuffs *is* tricky when you’re a guy.
Other Avatar: BP, nothing wrong with my creativity. :) But I have leggings that extend all the way to my toes. It’s simplty hard to find shoes for slink feet that will not try and compete with that, as it were
Bitch Please: I have male alts. I still don’t have issues finding things. :)
Bitch Please: And they’re always well dressed.
Skell Dagger: I have plenty of creativity and drive to make fashion work. My 190k+ inventory will testify to that ;-)
Hrm. Shall we just analyse Miss BP’s responses, one section at a time?
“I don’t have any issues finding pants and shoes that work together.”
- You’re a female avatar.
- There’s a METRIC FUCKTON more stuff out there for female avatars than there is for male avatars.
- Well ain’t you something, huh?
- You’re a female avatar.
- Preach it, sistah! Because what the hell do us stupid men know about shopping, huh?!
- You’re a female avatar.
- Do I need to repeat that you’re a female avatar?
Let us take a little diversion here, shall we? How many special sale events are there that cater almost exclusively for female avatars? I’d guess at least a dozen, changing around every couple of weeks. Now, how many for male avatars? ONE. Per. Month.
“Hey, some of those are unisex!” I hear you cry. Why, yes, they are; if you don’t mind buying only furniture. Or jewellery. Let’s take, as an example, the new round of Genre – one of my favourite places for a freaky boy like me to find unusual stuff to blog. The current round’s theme is Baroque, and you’d think there’d be several gorgeous items for men there, wouldn’t you? Here’s a breakdown of what’s actually there:
- Dresses: 10 (in multiple colours/variants)
- Corsets (rigged; only female avatars or male avis on a female mesh can wear them): 1
- Female footwear: 3
- Unisex footwear: 1
- Jewellery: 5
- Furniture: 10
- Other female clothing (with boob-shaped mesh jackets, etc): 3
- Hair: 2 (I’ve seen one male blogger who has worn the tall female powdered wig, but his avi is small and slender)
- Poses: 2
- Tattoos: 1
- Accessories: 5
- Makeup: 1
- Female skins: 1
- Churchwarden pipe: 1
- Male clothing: 1 (a pair of harlequin leggings)
The last two in that list, plus the unisex footwear and one furniture item, are the only things that are marketed towards (and would appeal to) the majority of men. I already have a great churchwarden pipe, so I don’t need a new one. I came away from Genre with the following items:
- The unisex boots (sadly there’s no demo so I took a chance on them and sadly they just don’t work with my avatar)
- The single available tattoo
- Two necklaces (unrigged mesh, so I can resize them)
- One of the female outfits. (I’ll be throwing away the boob-shaped mesh jacket, but joy of joys the gorgeous harem-style pants actually FIT on Skell. Expect to see those in a blog post soon)
- A brooch
- A fan
- Some decor
So, in reality, Miss Bitch Please, you need a damn sight MORE drive to make things work, when there’s less to work with.
“Seems to me it’s not a limitation of mesh, but a limitation of ones creativity or drive to make things work together.”
Ahahahahahaha! Aaaaaahahahhahahahaaaaa! NO.
Oh, honey, so very much NO. With that one sentence you shoved not only me but the others who were agreeing with me in that group chat straight down the garbage chute and into the depressing morass of Not Being You. How will we ever cope without your awesomesauce levels of creativity? How do we even bring ourselves to get up in the morning without your levels of drive to make things works together?!
OK, let’s just address that issue of “drive to make things work together”. I went through more than sixty pairs of shoes and boots in my inventory to find a pair that not only fitted the extremely-skinny ankles of these fucking amazing pants by VRSION KONVERT, but that also fitted the style of look that I was going for. More than sixty pairs. I spent almost three quarters of a frustrating hour trying to “make things work together” (fitting both physically and stylistically) on just the shoes alone, and still I was only about 80% happy with the boots that I ended up using. So don’t you dare fucking tell me that I don’t have the drive to make things work.
And yes, I can make those same pants fit a ‘normal-with-a-Skell-twist’ look, too, with some great studded loafers (below). But ‘normal’ wasn’t what I was going for in the look, above.
Now, onto “limitation of creativity”. Christ on a cracker, does Skell have to slap a bitch? SERIOUSLY?!
Exhibit A:
I desperately wanted to get that insane female hairstyle to work on a male avatar. There are items from fifteen different stores in that look (not counting the birdcage and the pose), after I’d cannibalised at least three separate outfits (one of them female-only) to put that look together. *tsk* However did I manage that with my poor levels of creativity? *shakes head at self*
Exhibit B:
Gosh, I must have totally lucked in here, and the Fashion Gods were feeling benevolent towards me when I put this one together (from sixteen different stores) completely by accident! It wasn’t that I remembered I’d purchased that amazing headdress over a year before this photoshoot, knowing that – at some point – I would be able to use it for the perfect outfit, after all! And it wasn’t that I was buying female Maitreya hair over four years ago, now was it?!
So yeah, honey. Don’t you dare fucking tell me that my creativity is ‘limited’.
“I have male alts. I still don’t have issues finding things. :)”
Oh, how fabulous for you! Please do tell me where these male alts of yours shop, because on this blog I’m always looking out for the latest ready-to-wear complete outfits! <insert passive-aggressive smiley here>
“And they’re always well dressed.”
That’s awesome. I’m happy for them. I’m well-dressed all the time, too. This is well-dressed:
I’m well turned-out enough. Nice pants, nice shirt, nice shoes that match and fit, nice bit of retro chic with the sunglasses. It’s all just so…. nice. That’s just me as I am when I’m hangin’ around, doing nothing very much special. It’s normal-me. It’s average.
I’m very happy for you, that you’re able to dress your male alts well. However, on this blog, I’m mostly not aiming for ‘average’. I’m shooting for a bit more than that.
Then again, on reading your profile after you shut down the chat with that little offhand insult of several people in said chat, I shouldn’t be surprised. In it, you state that you don’t need my permission to fuck with my head. Well, sweetie, you also didn’t need my permission to shove your head so far up your own arse that you were in danger of seeing daylight past your tonsils, but hey; you went ahead and did it anyway. Might wanna dial 911, because it looks as if you’ll be stuck there for a while.
/me eases off the bitch heels and goes to soak his feet for a bit.
Oh, mon Dieu ! I LOVE this post, Skell! I smiled the whole way through.
Mesh fitting is no simple matter, and even with years of experience making system things work well together…I sometimes just throw up my hands at mesh. Some things just won’t work…even after messing with alpha layers and the like. It just is what it is – and I don’t like changing Mireille’s shape to accommodate – unless it’s just a wee bit, here or there.
I do adore well-made mesh (rigged or otherwise), but sometimes the combination of items and my avi (or my Aeon’s) just don’t, well, mesh. :-)
Thank you. And…by the way…you rock!
Mireille ♥
*g* Thank you!
Sometimes it’s good to have a decent old bitchin’ session to let the frustration out. I do always force myself to sleep on my anger for at least one night, but then if it’s still there I have to let it out, otherwise it simmers and begins to fester, and there’s no way I’m holding onto feelings like those.
And yes, sometimes mesh simply doesn’t mesh! I haven’t thrown away any of my old clothing layer items, so I do at least have pants that I can make work with things like high mesh boots, but the selection for guys can be so limited that it’s limitING.