We must leave M. Carter Blanc to languish in one of the nastier jails of the Near East for the time being... You are wondering how the loose ends tie up? Well, they don't...all of them. But what we can tell you is that Carter's sojourn in the Sûreté nationale's dungeons in between...conversations...with the chief of intelligence in fact saved him from a far worse fate, as you may have gathered from the tickets and brochures he had for the infamous ship of the White Star Line, owned in part by his father's acquaintance, J.P. Morgan.
His father's influence couldn't help him now as his offense was serious: he was caught in possession of the torn half of a postcard, the other half of which matched one in the briefcase of an internationally-known spy -- this being a method of tradecraft to ensure bona fides. What the Sûreté nationale hadn't discovered yet was that Carter had also fabricated his diplomatic passport. But we will pull a veil over these unpleasant experiences now until we can pick up with M. Blanc later on the Mainland.
So on to the credits:
The house I asked to decorate is called "Villa Sirocco," made by Culprit (eku Zhong). The big olive tree in the front yard is by Nadine Reverie, and the glam poppies are by the Looking Glass. That's all the prims I was willing to spare for landscaping -- hence weaving the "indifferent gardener" into my tale.
The plaque is a retextured !Lyrical B!zarre Templates! - Art Deco Frame - Textured with the fictitious little European nation of Tatania. The graphics for the seal is licensed from Clipartof.
(Later, for some really odd reason, this prim stopped working to give notecards -- I notice that more and more with mesh things lately. I tried everything all kinds of scrips, making sure the notecard name was correct, etc. etc. I finally had to replace this with an ordinary prim.
I also had the Honorary Consul's seal made from this image by Vanyi Resident who makes such seals for the Gor crowd.
I decided to put my own name on it because I would use it in the future, unlike the name of the character for this story. In the story, the seal with the Prokofy name is from the previous honorary consul, who is some relative of his Russian mother, you see.
BTW, click on the letters on the desk and you can get a sealed letter, too!
I should mention at the outset that the Arabian-style music is from an amazing and very long loop created by Mikki Miles, MusicSphere Desert -- you never get tired of it, and you can put it all around your build or sim, by amplifying orb scripts he provides, and set the volume.
Cosmos Red &Cream Roses in White Planter MESH - I love these roses as they are, and calling them "scraggly" is just for the story's sake to highlight that the gardener is "indifferent".
rose petals by Torie Zeplin
floorplan. 2 apple crates
::Marocaine:: Large Hookah & two seats - I am so glad I made a last-minute trip to Marocaine to see if she had anything else.
Pomegranate Braided Jute Rug 5
Pizza-Oven-Door-Off by Minotaurus Merlin
Kei's Wine&Shine Rhubarb Cutting Board
..::THOR::.. Workspace Table
*UI* Kitchen Oven Rusty
MadPea MyHelsinki Crate of Cherries
Pie Shell by Lunar Tripsa (from a strawberry pie-making set)
A pot of mulled wine. Materials enabled by Ayynaren (this is the "pie filling" which also dispenses cups).
I made the book of Aubrey Beardsley's drawing and had one of the drawings temp-rez. The "Rez Object on Touch" script was by Old Bohemian. Wulfie Reanimator helped revised it for me so the items rez out at the right angle facing you
Pomegranate Braided Jute Rug 4
*UI* Moroccan Buffet Copper Green - I re-textured this sideboard along with the one upstairs because I wanted to get away from the cliche copper for Moroccan things that you see everywhere. So I used a variety of tile textures from Wayfair or bits of travel photos or whatever that wasn't copyrighted. As I said in the story, I'm not sure Carter's "varnishing" was always an improvement, and it is in retexturing that you learn new appreciation for creators and what they do, and I'm happy to use this United Inshon in various builds of mine "as is," too.
MADRAS Tiffany Decor Set Fully Linked - this is a wonderful set which I had to "de-fat" a little, taking some things off like the flower and pot and shadows to reduce prims. I also spread out the pieces to fill the room more (Cocoanut Koala came and took a last-minute look at my distressing kitchen and said it needed fixing). So the potpouri and the TNT (which is genius!) are put on the counter and the corner, respectively.
^v^Lilith -Magic Lily ^v^ (2019) by Lilith's Den. Instead of the original Madras flowers, there is a Madras Moth Jar, also "de-fatted" a bit -- it really is a wonderful thing, a moth on rocks and sticks that I must put out at the Moth Templte). And inside that moth jar is Lilith's Den's magic iris, that emits particles that look like flower petals and pollen. LOVE. I am especially grateful to Lilith's Den's creator, Alrunia Ahn, who literally at the last minute as the contest time was nearly up, adjusted her ^v^Lilith -Magic Lily ^v^ (2019) for me to make the particles smaller and so they wouldn't blast out over the sim -- something that I was afraid would cause the organizers to make me remove it, and I hated that thought, since it was really perfect for this house.
I also re-textured the scrolls in the Madras jar with the vintage French receipt texture to fit the theme.
I love the mirror!
*pm* Rug Merchant Rugs: Flat & Fresh - 01
I'm sorry -- but I despair of ever getting that rug to rez right for me. I'm sure it does for others. See Wildstar's so-much-better photos from this house I decorated here to see it in MUCH better light.
{LORE} Marrakesh Latern (wall)
ionic : el banquito del pueblo
floorplan. vintage travel poster
Le Maroc Marseille - a vintage poster I got from the Internet.
magazine shape D (fashion2) by gummi yao
ROIRO - Drink server M (Orange)
The pistachios' bag is from a set I made from Christmas bags licensed from Joan Nomad. It has this famous Arabic text on it. Inside are pistachios licensed from T-3D Creations.
For this dispensable and animated items, like others around the build, I am grateful to Qie Niango, who once answered my query on the forums about how to make things dispense and stay in your hand -- there were a lot of proprietary versions of this, and some of them disappeared on you (they are meant to be temp) so you'd lose no-copy items that way, so he made "Original Rezzer of Wearable" and "Original Wearable" which you can pick up at The Alchemist's where I have free and open scripts. I have added various animations to this if I can get it to work.
One thing I used to make the pistachios scatter and also to put the bag up to your face is the Crumb Cake freebie made by Cinco Pizzicato. It is a wondrous thing. Especially the emitter.
22769 ~ [bauwerk] Moroccan Coffee Table - COMMON
~Libertine~ Magnolia Slim Cabinet, wood & black velvet
3rd Eye_ 2 Fae Music Box ( Ambrosia Fairy base ) - I had to remove a twig or two from this as I was shaving prims. It's from a great gatcha with even more cool ones that were too high-prim to use.
This Velvet Whip chalice is from a goblet gatcha and I renamed it "Triumphant Chalice" because it has a horn riff that plays from it which I added.
Fnordian Oracle Eye - I had to shrink and de-prim this item again. I also added a synth sound to it I had in a Halloween set I got from Hastur Pierteson
JCD- MET 17th Cent Dagger Display by Jacon Cortez
The "Hand of Glory" (which I call "Elegant" compared to a more creepy one I made) I made as follows: a basic box, covered with teak texture from tile stores; the hinge I am grateful to Molloch Dragevar, whose box I bought, and examined how he did it, and discovered a script by Trullo Oh which works within a hinge which you make invisible. This solves the problem of how to get lids to open right -- they have the same angle issues as objects rezzed as I noted above. You have to make cut doors with invisible parts, or figure out angles, or whatever to get it right, but it's better if there's something that "just works". I have this on the MP for $1.
Next, I got a mesh hand licensed from Karra Baker (Linda). The one inside the box is textured with a zombie skin I found online; inside that is the actual "glory" hand that has a teak texture, and a tapered candle by Greg Parker. The particles I bought from Drake. It's something to see, and my photos don't do it justice!
A cornerstone of this project was =Mirage= Moroccan Urn Planter - OrangeGlass - it's an old piece but holds up so well, I love the shimmer on the glass -- I actually used two, as you will see.
Here's the other Mirage piece =Mirage= Moroccan Urn Planter - Pinks. For the office, which in the story is Mrs. M's domain, I chose LAQ Decor ~ Secretary Desk because it seemed more feminine -- there are a lot of big old desks out there and I have some of them and "A Room in Florence" also might have been a possibility but this had the right set of non-anachronistic stuff. Then I used the mail bag from the Madras mail gatcha, and added a bunch of letters from Internet textures.
That's ionic : 19th Century Bookcase - it has the same feel as the farmhouse piece in the kitchen by Kuro and it's Victorian, so it worked for me. First, I had a big safe here but then took it out, it was distracting and was extra prims. I used the one-prim wall safe to make the point [LJ] HIdden Safe - Tall Painting.
Amala - Mail Basket with the little packages seemed like what was needed. I would have rather overstuffed this room with lots of odds and ends. But there just wasn't the prims, given the decision to use some old primmy pieces and have other story elements.
Any pictures used in the story of persons living and dead are not related to this fictional story but are just period pieces.
On the desk I had to have waxes and seals for the Honorary Consul! I imagined that straight off. So here's 5 MI Seal Wax Kit [LI 1] ad, Thor's StampsHolder which is part of a desk set, and some Internet vintage receipts and ledgers which I put my wax seal on made by Vanyi.
From the first time I saw Culprit's house, which is very open and expansive, I despaired of being able to fill it and right off the bat decided I had to have this part of the Raven's Nest - {C&C} Raven's Nest Bookcase 3 - which with the others makes for a secret room accessible by clicking on the metal plate above with the engraving of the dragons. There's *pm* Metal Moroccan Monstera Planter: Cobalt/Faded here as well to serve as a foil, so that people won't think that you'll walk through this plant to another room.
Moorish Cabinet Orange back by Tara Tagore is old-school, 13 prims, but I can't imagine a Moroccan-type build without it. I got it years ago, and used to have it in my big river house on the mountain above the waterfalls in Refugio.
You can see Persian Rug/Modify/Copy from Evaline Merlin; 22769 ~ [bauwerk] Moroccan Bed - RARE from a gatcha; a wall rug I made out of a texture from a Turkmen rug and the back of Liz Gealach's rug from Thistle -- God bless her, as this mesh thing re-textured well in ways that mesh doesn't always, enabling me to put lots of rugs around that otherwise would have looked like flat cardboard on a prim. Also here is Blot Brick's antique military cabinet that has a funny gun that says "BANG" inside as you can see in the story. He has closed his store, which I loved, but I realize the demand for old-school prim workmanship is limited.
I don't like chandeliers, but this is a nice one and I thought the room and my characters would have one. This is [Tia] Light Extension by Tia Biscuit.
On top of the dresser is Mahogany Dressing Case- touch to open/Copyable by Eva's Nest, and you can see from the story that it has nice shinies in it as a texture, but it works.
Then I added the photo of the national liberation movement leaders and ~B'sR~ Berber Knife with Sheath, Morocco, 19th cen by Paisley.
I only reluctantly decided on the bauwerk Moroccan Bed -- that is, I love that bed, precisely because it is so white with such a high thread-count Egyptian linen LOL -- sometimes bauwerk stuff is too dark for me -- but originally I had wanted to use the wonderful Turkmenistan bed from Dreamland Designs. DD is probably the only person besides me ever to make anything in SL called "Turkmenistan". But it was more prims and more space than I had, and as it turned out we needed to put in PG beds to keep the visitors from "performances," and this bauwerk bed is PG.
It's called "Orange back" because -- the back is orange. And you can see she hand-drew (or somebody did) the latticed design, so as to spare prims.
Inside on the top shelf is jewelry box_egyption + key by Jimsky Rhode, who makes nice antiques. But this lid didn't open with a hinge, so I made one myself and added "mother of pearl" -- which is actually from some plastic tile at Wayfair but as these things go, it looked better than actual mother-of-pearl textures I found here and there. I also textured the inside with a burl wood and velvet as Jimsky didn't have those.
The baubles are SPELL : Pearls Earing - R, SPELL : Vintage Pearls Choker and a strand from a Poet's Heart pearl set.
On the bottom shelf is {LORE} Jewelry Box which doesn't open, but that was ok and SPELL : Vintage Pearls and Diamonds Necklace. These push back to reveal an internal passport I made out of an image from the Internet, as in the story.
The book on top is Byron by Eva's Nest and inside I have the Russian letter of transit as a temp-rez -- see the story.
SPELL : Forgotten Victorian Frames seemed like something that belonged in this build. The rug is a Turkmenistan rug, from when I began at first with the Turkmen idea but had to leave that as only a past post of M. Blanc. Then LISP - Jasmine Silk Rug - Warm Beige which together with other rugs in this set of different colours has saved me many a time. [f] Boho Silk Route Washstand & Pitcher finishes this off -- as you will see, other items from Folklorica seemed key to this project -- my only nod to a bathroom which I rarely put in my decorations.
So here you see another Turkmen rug, on enough transparency to see the book shelf as it moves aside so you can see where to walk out. The [Figure 8] Classic Contemporary Chair Wood (White) and (Red) and [Figure 8] Conversion Coffee Table and Chocolate Truffle Cake Figure 8 I saw at Swank, they're one of my RFL vendor selections, and I thought they were perfect for the decadence of this room -- not too ornate, stately. I shrunk down the table and cake to fit the scene better.
Then there's (RVi) Arabian Market Tray which was a gift at the very last minute from Roshy Aura, who I think is one of the RFL event organizers and a merchant. Just like last year when Artisan and TLG came by and gave me things for the installation.
I had been fretting about a sculpty coffee giver I had made myself which didn't look very good and then this offer came in which was also only one prim. Inside is a coffee cup originally made by Jessica Ornitz, which I retextured and resized a bit, and added animations, temp rez, a frothy coffee top, and liquid that goes up and down. Every once in a while I spend a whole evening struggling to make/fix something like that, but I enjoy it! Try it out on site!
And the original Ur-rug -- Thistle Rug Oriental orange mesh -- isn't it wonderful? I remember seeing it in their store and having to get it some time ago. And this was the backing I could use for the others.
Now I'm tired out again -- back to finish soon!
