Fantasy Faire 2024 – Lolliocalypse

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL Events
A heavily tattooed woman with long white hair stands before a stone shop front; only her head and shoulders are in the frame. She is at the left of the image looking toward the right at a very large, very angry cupcake. Only the top of its cake and a couple swirled layers of icing can be seen but if all of it were visible, it would be about 8 feet tall. Orange and purple eyes look out from between layers of icing. Long sharp teeth fill a mouth that emerges between the icing and the cake.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lolliocalypse/169/128/71
Sponsor: What’s Lost Spirits & Nephilim Photography
Designer: What88 Zond

Shops

  • Hexed
  • Menkoi
  • Jangka
  • The Undiscovered Jewel
  • Stix
  • Moonforest
  • The Little Bat
  • Color Alchemists
  • Madame Noir
  • Celeste
  • Amadeu
  • What’s Lost Spirits (where you can get some very dark cupcakes)
  • atame
  • nope.
  • Birth
  • The Dark Fae
  • Gypsy Wolf Creations
  • Musgrave
  • Flamingli
  • Tara
  • Moonley Inc.
  • Vortech
  • XS Primal
A woman with long white hair stands on pavement with broad red and white stripes. She is wearing a clear plastic knee length rain coat and heavy knee high lace up boots with high heels and thick soles. Before her is a bridge bounded by tall red and white candy striped pillars. Beyond the bridge is some nightmare creature with a fearsome face, angry blue green eyes and a vast cave like mouth filled with long sharp teeth. The creature appears to be at least 20 feet high. No arms or legs are visible.

Every Fantasy Faire, there is at least one region where the light fails and darkness prevails. This year, it’s Lolliocalypse. (Last year it was Dingir which was also designed by What88 Zond 🤔.)

Lolliocalypse is all about food, sweets to be specific. All over the town, or what remains of it, there are cakes, donuts, jellybeans, cupcakes, and ice cream. But they are all dark, huge, twisted parodies of the confections we’ve all come to know and love (albeit too much sometimes).

Immediately upon landing, I was struck by the palpably unwholesome atmosphere of the town. I was overcome with a desire not to be contaminated by it. I quickly put on my plastic mac and a pair of seriously heavy boots. Properly equipped, I started across the bridge to begin exploring.

Two enormous cakes, with candles burning on top of them, appear to ooze down a street with broken pavement. The cakes are splotchy brown and purple in colour with slightly more purplish icing. They look to be about 15-20 feet high. Each has huge eyes in deep sockets and wide, cavernous mouths with long sharp teeth, about 3-4 feet in length. The foremost one has a forked tongue lolling out that extends maybe a dozen feet in front of it.

The town is collapsing. The buildings, most appear to be made of chocolate, being consumed, walls failing after enough of their substance has been gnawed away. How did things reach this point?

A plaque at the main landing area gives us some important clues.

“In the whimsical town of Lolliocalypse, the legacy of Cornelius Candyclaw, a revered alchemist, cast a long shadow. His descendant, Mayor Craven Candyclaw, inherited not only his name but also his obsession with immortality. Convinced he had unlocked the secret to eternal life, Mayor Craven and his wife, Bonbon, embarked on a perilous path. They enacted Cornelius’s final experiment, transforming the unsuspecting citizens into delectable candies, consumed to achieve everlasting life.”

And maybe they have achieved everlasting life, though at a terrible cost. And maybe life for them will be everlasting only so long as edible portions of Lolliocalypse remain.

A collection of giant, deformed confections occupies the slowly collapsing and decaying center of a town square. A brown and purple birthday cake, tens of feet high with wild staring eyes and a cave like mouth filled with sharp teeth; An iced muffin with a similar visage, an enormous pie with an eye looking out of its center, dark donuts and lollypops surround the outer edges of the dark buffet. In the distance the buildings of the town square stand, though some are beginning to collapse.

What message do we take away from Lolliocalypse? That too much of anything, candy, even life, is dangerous? Or just don’t toy with the laws of nature (and confectionary). I think each of us will have to take away their own lesson after visiting.

This is a region filled with whimsical darkness, but it’s still a treat to behold. The forms of the demented desserts are very well done indeed. The lighting is ideal for creating the proper mood. Pay particular attention to the dark lanterns, shuttered things that should give no light and yet are surrounded by a pale illumination. The broken pavement is perfect for the town. Look closely there too for some surprising details.

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