Men's Second Style

Bigger is not necessarily better. I know, I know—size matters, and all that. People do say that. But as always, it’s not what you’ve got: it’s what you do with it that matters. Read the rest of this entry »

The snow crunched under Etienne’s feet as he slowly and deliberately made his way across the great open space that would, in warmer weather, be a verdant lawn. It was a long way from the manor house to the stand of trees on the south side of the grounds, and already he was beginning to feel the chill. It would not do for him to be shivering with cold; it simply would not. Read the rest of this entry »

Marie was late.

In and of itself, that was nothing new. Vraiment, she was always late. He ws convinced that this was not because she could not keep track of time (and anyway, she had ladies-in-waiting for that sort of thing). No, it was clearly a power play on her part. If she could keep you waiting, she was the one in control. And Marie liked being in control. In any case, if Marie expected you to wait…of course, you waited. Read the rest of this entry »

When he stepped off the train into the empty station, he felt not fear or apprehension but, rather, simple annoyance. He hesitated for a moment and turned to signal the porter, but the porter had vanished back into the car and the train was already pulling out of the station in chuffing clouds of steam. He was annoyed because it had been no small task to secure passage to New Babbage on such short notice (notwithstanding the urgent nature and secretly noble origins of the request), especially in a style to which he was most comfortably accustomed. He was annoyed because he could see clearly that, in spite of all extravagant promises to the contrary, no one was there to meet him. He was annoyed because he could see that the nearby hostelry was the Mechanix Arms—no doubt a fine enough establishment, but it was not the Brunel Hall Hotel, where he had rooms reserved for his immediate occupancy. Read the rest of this entry »

It was a hard life, living in the Wastelands. No one denied that. In fact, it was one of the hardest lives one could be born to. It was even harder living on the edge of the Great Fissure. No one quite believed that, unless they themselves had been born to it. Or exiled there. Read the rest of this entry »

Not just anyone, and certainly not everyone, can be a dandy. My own image of the contemporary dandy is quite specific: Richard Jeperson, investigator for the Diogenes Club. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? Although little is known of his background, he is perhaps as well known for his flamboyant 1970s dress sense as for his psychic investigative work on behalf of perhaps the most secret branch of Britain’s secret intelligence services. Along with his sidekick and fellow operative Vanessa, he has been responsible on any number of occasions for preserving the safety of Britain, and perhaps the world, in the face of supernatural forces beyond our understanding.

Oh, and also—he’s fictional. But that doesn’t keep him from setting the bar pretty high when it comes to dandy. No indeed, it does not, believe you me. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m still exploring the Wonderful World of Mesh, slowly but steadily. It’s interesting and encouraging to see the increasingly polished and sophisticated design work being done. Of course here I’m thinking specifically of clothing items, but I’ve seen some remarkable pieces of furniture and other creations as well. Although opinions vary and mesh is by no means a magic bullet for any of the clothing issues we’ve grumbled about for so long, I think it has some great features. Properly rigged, mesh garments are able to move impressively with your avatar—and neither skin-tight, like garment-layer clothing items, nor segmented, as prim or sculptie attachments that span joints necessarily are. I also love the level of textural detail that’s possible, which far surpasses what can be done with garment-layer clothing textures. Read the rest of this entry »

In J-horror (and to a certain extent in horror from Asian countries other than Japan) there’s a well known archetype: the scary girl with long hair. She is traditionally a ghost or spirit, often with a horrifying face and inhuman skin, and she is most definitely scary. She is almost always bent on vengeance for wrongs done to her in life. Think of the central supernatural figures in “Ringu” (“The Ring”), “Ju-On” (“The Grudge”), and “Janghwa, Hongryeon” (“A Tale of Two Sisters”, actually an example of K-horror )—you’ll know just what I mean. Read the rest of this entry »

Ray Bradbury has written rather famously over the years in books and story collections about things deliciously and delightfully macabre. Evocative titles like Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Halloween Tree and From the Dust Returned hint at the fantasies and wonders to be found in the pages that lie between the covers. Of all Bradbury’s strange and wonderful autumnal fantasy titles, perhaps none more so than The October Country seems somehow to speak directly to something deep inside, something visceral, something primal. Ray’s vision is of not just a time of year but an almost-actual place where everything is slightly askew, where the weird is not at all unusual, and where the Pumpkin King reigns supreme. In autumn, the leaves fall and rot gently into the soil, the green of summer grass long gone. In autumn, the air turns crisp and cold, and often smells of bonfires. In autumn, jack-o-lanterns gleam and spirits roam the earth. In autumn, we journey into the October country. Read the rest of this entry »

It is not widely known that the Fae Airborne Legion played a critical role in several key victories during the Clockworks Campaign of 1864. In fact, the very existence of the Fae Airborne Legion is not widely known. This is doubtless due to the fae people’s resistance to fame and publicity. Written history (human, of course, as the fae keep no such tradition) is all but mum on the subject. Nonetheless, oral histories of fae and human alike document and retell tales of decisive victories, such as the one at Gorham Grange, that would surely have been routs but for the contributions of the FAL. Read the rest of this entry »