Creepy crawlies, grim ghouls, and all that goes bump in the night have slithered out of their haunts and into our realm as the 31st of October looms on the horizon. Halloween has come knocking to 2009, and few can deny its call: for one month, the world celebrates the dead, deviance, and - above all - being different. This holiday, the throne for the favorite fiend has a number of competitors, offering the living a variety of options to create their own unique monstrosity-

Special things for Halloween include my family's yearly viewing of the three Oceans movies, anticipating a Lord of the Rings marathon in a month, and bracing for the onslaught of family in December. October continues to rain down lovely frocks and skins, including this new release by L&S, the Leila_Johan Hex costume in honor of a certain movie. The skin is only 66L for the Halloween season from GeEs! It's one of the Tara Reloaded skins, and it's named the Pierrot Halloween Spezial. It's the perfect tattered finery to wear to a zombie ball...

Plastik makes some of the finest little sheath dresses around with perfectly fitting crotch prims, and MiaSnow's makeups are always brilliantly colored and creative. I'm a complete sucker for Halloween kitsch (like pumpkin-print shirts or what have you) and I still can't believe that Aikea of Plastik actually makes it work in a sexy, interesting way. Combined, the orange and green of it all makes me feel like a pumpkin patch at midnight, never a bad sensation! The little mesh leggings from TheCloset work well with the 80s micro-mini look, as do the pointy Scene-style type flats. The hair is a current favorite freebie from Rotten Toe, out at Zombiefest.

I'm overjoyed that it's October -- so many good things are happening to me this month (like, say, a new job) that it's worth pausing to write about. Happy turn of the year! Now if only Orlando would get cold...

I am wearing mythic things today. My hair is SLink's Ophelia, drawn to float around one's head as if your avatar is immersed in a watery grave. The lines are beautiful, thick strands interspersed by floating ones, a nimbus of messy beauty. It sits above a dress with a number of lines and options, Schadenfreude's Striga. Striga has a mermaid skirt in two kinds, an a-line skirt, and a system skirt or dress option, a plethora as usual from Allegory. The outfit is beautifully constructed, and named after an ancient evil. The Striga looks human enough, but preys upon the life-forces of young children, leaving them in a death-like coma...

A long while ago, I met Polaire Aeghin when her cute little blue dress made its way to me via DSN. Her shop, Prelude, was full of equally neat little frocks in light pastel colors, perfect for an afternoon lounging about a Japanese sim or two. Imagine my surprise when she handed me this outfit -- dark, elaborate, tailed and gothic. I kind of love it when brands do the unexpected. Some designers make whole new shops for clothing that isn't like their main line (like Ghanima, recently), some put it into a special 'costume' section. This outfit sits amid the flock of cute pastel frocks like a very different kind of horse!

It's the last hours of Black Swan and  I have taken the path one more time and probably for the last time in Second Life. While I was snapping some photos I have realised  I was wearing a a Blue Blood dress for the closing of Crimson Shadow and here I am wearing a new release from Blue Blood for the last walk in Black Swan. 

The other day, Ghanima Ulriza the creator of ++ Blue Blood++ made a comment on one of my flickr photos which I have taken wearing Deep Flames Gown. She mentioned that she has never seen her designs in a non-goth avatar and she thought it looked amazing. I was glad that she liked what I have put together and made me thought about my style. Its true that I have never been a gothgirl but I like mixing looks. I have a lot of dark clothing =) , leather trousers and wonderful black boots with loads of metal.On the other hand, I love the pastels of and cuteness of Momo and love mixing them up again with some dark look.  I also love striking, dark make-ups.

It has been a while since we have changed the Crimson Shadow Lucky Chair item. This time I couldn't help but choose one of the favourite outfits of Crimson Shadow. The set contains a tattoo, chocker, beautifully textured long coat with hot pants . Simple but yet elegant and extremely gothic. An ensemble that has to be in your inventory. It's a great outfit to mx and match with high boots and lots of accessories. Its now available at the shop level in Crimson Shadow.

Angela Thomas (of the University of Sydney), Kate Richards and Kerreen Ely Harper created an incredible learning sim named Macbeth: Foul Whisperings, Strange Matters. This sim is a "symbolic treatment of the key themes of Shakespeare's play, Macbeth" (from the info card), and it takes the multimedia elements of a 3D gaming world and turns it into pure art.

My daughter is watching Sailor Moon today, and the moon symbolism made me think about this jewelry set from Crimson Shadow. It's called "Crescent," and the design puts me in mind of the ancient symbolism of the moon. One of the interesting things about gothic culture is that it borders on Pagan and Wiccan cultures. The moon's shape and meaning and connection to female power (and inner tides) makes it a central focus of many rituals...

One in particular caught my attention because it seems pertinent to my occupation. I'm a teacher, and we live by cycles much like the moon. It's coming up to the end of the semester, and this meaning seemed especially nice: