Blog of the Week: Second Laura Tells Powerful Stories Through Avatar Fashion Accessories

Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting

Arualblues Zero has a blog called Second Laura that is my favorite kind of Second Life blog, one that gives us stories. Her recent post You Have Been Loved is quite extraordinary. Not only did she give us an older than average avatar, but an emotional vignette of an old man in his sickbed who wakes up in the night, feeling the weight of loneliness and fumbling “with heavy fingers” for the remote so he can distract himself. The picture and the story are so well done.  

• Head: LOGO Victor Head + Skin – Pale

For more stories, click here:

No More Butterflies is an elegiac vignette featuring a steampunk android. After all, who else will be left to remember and mourn when all else is gone? Those boots are a wonder and I was surprised to realize that Laura/Arual herself made them. She has her own store, Drunken Brokkr, and often includes an item or two in her outfits.

Here’s her story to accompany this image, along with the item credits:

The air is rancid with death and rubble dust. It’s been many years since the last time human steps hurried along these roads, now broken and silent. There are no more voices bartering among the ruins of what was the market, no more pigeons pecking at bread crumbs outside of the empty shell that was a bakery, no more children chasing a dog or singing a nursery rhyme on their way from the shattered remains of a school. There are no more dogs chasing birds, no more birds, no more butterflies.

• Head: LOGO M.A.B.E.L-6 Cybernetic Head + Skin – Alabaster
• Boots: [Drunken Brokkr] Harabanar Boots 
• Arm guard: [Drunken Brokkr] Harabanar Arm Guard 

Second Laura is everything I love in a blog. Great pictures, a little bit of storytelling, and great credits that include event dates so you know you need to go to the mainstore because the event ended months ago. I do wish she provided SLURLs for all items, but that may be her effort to comply with Flickr’s TOS. She has commentary with additional information on some items, such as with the cybernetic head.  She also gives links to where she shoots and when she quotes something, she credits it. I love her attention to detail. And stories! More stories!

All images copyright Arualblues Zero

See all of Cajsa's Choices here. Follow Cajsa on Flickr, on Twitter, on her blog, and on her Ko-Fi.

Suggest Flick images and Flickr feeds to Cajsa Lilliehook! Tag your picture with #CasjaNWN -- or tag Cajsa Lilliehook on Flickr by adding her to the photo.

Cajsa’s Choices is devoted to unique, artistic, and innovative virtual world-based images and screenshots that showcase the medium as an art form and Second Life as a creative platform. (Generally not images that fit on this Bingo card.)  

Cajsa Lilliehook is a sixteen year resident of Second Life, where she owned a photo studio, spent several years as a DJ at The Velvet, and for her first SL job, cleaned up prim trash. She co-founded and runs the It’s Only Fashion blog with her best friend Gidge Uriza. She also has a book review blog, Tonstant Weader Reviews and a cooking blog, Single Serving Recipes. She spends a lot of time researching and reporting on Republican sexual predators. In her first life, she is a retired grassroots leader who has worked for economic and social justice issues most of her life. She is also the minion of a cat named Nora.

Comments

[Arualblues Zero]

I am so touched by your beautiful feature of my work. I love telling these stories through my photos, sometimes totally imagined, and often inspired in reality.
"You have been loved" was a love poem for my aging father and a way to confront the sadness of being so far away while his health fades away. "No more butterflies" was born after a few sleepless nights watching news about the various violent wars of our times.
Also, big thanks for featuring our store! My wonderful husband and I make all the products together, and even though we're small we try our best to create things that tickle our imaginations to create more Second Life stories.
Cheers!
Arualblues