Pretty Damn Queenly

a fun kind of queen

 As a child, playing princess wasn't really my thing. I had dolls and cuddly toys, yes, and I used to make little houses out of my Nana's sofa cushions, but I also had a car mat and a book about dinosaurs and I liked to watch Power Rangers and Batman with my mum. I didn't go through the teenage princess thing, either, but instead threw my lot in with the knights and the soldiers and the rogues, the mages and the necromancers who put the dead back into their graves (not the more traditional other way around).

Queens are where it's at. If I had to occupy any position of power within a monarchy, I'd want to be a queen. My husband would not outrank me, and I wouldn't suffer any of that pea-under-a-mattress or cursed spinning loom nonsense. I'd be the benign dictator I'm starting to think my country needs (did you see any of the Clegg/Farage debate? Kill me now).

The leaves remind me of the Roman laurel wreath. I have no idea if that was even remotely the intention behind this design.

I know it wouldn't be easy, but I'm not sure that ruling should be easy. If it's easy, you're missing something somewhere, you're not engaging with the problems and the nuances of the problems of the people. And I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth and a chair at Eton with my name already written on it - in cursive on a little golden plaque - so I don't waltz with an air of entitlement sniggering behind my hand at in-jokes with my fellow Bullingdon Boy chums. I'm also not afraid of Islam, and have an open mind about the EU. Oh - and I'd consider employing as my allies and advisors any homosexual the kind members of UKIP can identify as having the ability to control the weather (I'd imagine that kind of skill is worth a Nobel Prize, at least).

What does any of this have to do with Second Life, Kitti? I hear you, oh noble and patient subjects, and I will give you the answer you seek. This self-indulgent ramble was inspired by the beautiful items I was asked to blog to help promote the Fit for a Princess Event, which opened in SL on April 1st. I was overwhelmed by the amount of things I received to blog (even more than from FutureWave!). There's no real way I could blog it all, but there seem to be lots of other bloggers on the case, too - so between us, perhaps we'll do it justice.

The fair itself isn't huge, but is packed full of really great and beautifully made items. It's really simply laid out in a circle, and the building itself has palpable textures and a shiny floor that reflects the arches in the roof perfectly (which is a really cool SL effect, I think). I realise that blogging fashion doesn't really fall in with my usual style of blogging, but I do like to take snaps of and record here some of the wonderful things the creators in SL are making, and I think this is one way of doing that. 

My dress in the first picture was made by aemeth. I've been a fan of aemeth since my early days in SL, and the make-up I bought from her store not long after I first started SL has aged magnificently and is still amongst my favourites. This dress is so lovely, but it's fun too - and I think funness is overlooked by the majority when talking about monarchy. What's the point in being a princess (or a queen) if you can't have any fun? I love the folds and the creases as the dress gathers into the cuffs and the hem - so realistically. 

The crown and collar in the second picture are by Evie's Closet and their leafy design seems to invoke a ghost of the old god-emperors of the Ancient Roman Empire. They're much more delicate, of course, than Caesar's laurels, but they are so so pretty.

Royal Blue I

Royal Blue II

The last things I want to show you are this beautiful ballgown and these super sparkly nails. The ballgown was made by Peqe, and it comes in a whole bunch of colour combinations, each named after a Grimm/Disney character. I don't tend to dress Kitti in blue very often, but I thought the softness of this dress in Hades (named after the Hercules' Hades, of course) was too pretty and sweet to miss out on. My glittery Rhinestone nails (appliers - for Slink hands) match perfectly, too. They're courtesy of A:S:S.

All of the items I have mentioned in post are available at the Fit for a Princess event, and there is so, so much more. If you'd like to go and see for yourself, click here - here! Even if you're not really into princessy stuff, like me, there'll most definitely be something there for you. I mean, how queenly do I look in those last pictures!? Pretty damn queenly, even if I do say so myself.

Stuck in Yesterday

Tiny irony: I took this screenshot last night...so technically, I took it yesterday. That is the level I'm at here.

Plurk has been buzzing lately with conversations about the changes Linden Labs have been trying to make to the Terms of Services and, freshly, news about the Australian annulment of same-sex marriage. I know very, very little about the former issue, but I saw the second on the BBC, and right in the middle of the television screen was a placard held by who-knows-who dismissing gay marriage because it isn't accepted in the Bible.

How are these two issues connected? They both represent our attempts to make new rules and regulations for today's people, and we aren't finding it very easy. If anything the media says is to be believed, there are many other ways in which our law system is becoming out of date. The very foundations of our societies are formed by treaties and agreements signed over fifty years ago by people who thought we'd all be flying around on jetpacks now if they could imagine this time at all. 

Those treaties and agreements are intensely important, and whilst they do the job generally, they don't take into account the way we have changed. They don't take into account the Internet, nor the collaborative way in which it allows people to work and to share ownership. In an age of CCTV and Obama reading our emails, we need to redefine 'privacy' and what we are entitled to. In an age of school shootings and children on Prozac, we need to have a conversation about mental health and gun ownership. I could go on.

That people think they are exempt from the law, even when that law has been revisited recently, is obvious: Mark Duggan, slavery in Bristol, even the crisis in Syria are examples of that. These issues should, technically, have been covered by the Geneva Convention, as well as anti-racism initiatives and on-going investigations into police brutality and what it does to your brain to hold a gun in your hand. It's a huge job but we have to keep going back, to look at these problems, to look at the laws and the attitudes that govern them. We need to make sure that they are applicable and relevant to the people they are governing, and we need initiatives in place to spread awareness, understanding, and acceptance of responsibility. 

I am not so naive as to think that there will never be people who commit crimes, and I know that there are a million mitigating factors that come into play, but I don't see how we can be ready to deal with those maturely and sensitively if we are not sure of what, exactly, we have allowed and not allowed in the first place.

I admit, I am not a religious person, but I have grown up in a country whose laws come from the Bible, and I have respect for the Bible as an important and sacred-to-some text. The Bible encourages us to be responsible and to be conscientious - to think of others as well as ourselves, and to look at each other with love. When in doubt, I understand that it is one of many places people go to look for an answer, but I think it is very, very important to remember that those words were committed to paper centuries ago. They weren't given to us; they were given to the people that lived centuries and centuries ago. They were given to people that couldn't imagine the world being anything like the way it is in 2013. They couldn't imagine a jetpack to even begin to envision us flying around with them right now.

The rules we make have got to take into account the way we have changed as well as the ways that we haven't. Go back to Geneva, make our current leaders sign the treaties they weren't even alive to agree to the signing of in the fifties after we have updated them to talk about Guantanamo Bay and the Internet and the liminal space of an airport. 

This will take time, and I am sure that we will face teething problems. The trick, I think, is to be patient but determined. Keep going, keep pushing, keep being sympathetic to everyone, not just those that share your cause. Keep going keep going keep going.

We are not the same people we were twenty years ago, let alone fifty years ago, or a thousand years ago, or two thousand years ago. And we all deserve happiness, safety, honesty and love.