Vanity Fair

This is an outfit I assembled for only L$7 for the steampunk-themed 3rd anniversary party at Bray's Place tomorrow: (If you're interested in the styling credits, just Google "ryan schultz blog" and you'll find the blogpost easily enough.) I quite like how it turned out, and spending next to nothing was a nice bonus!

You will be missed, Oz! Thank you for everything you've done with us and for us, and enjoy your retirement!

Belleza Jake, Legacy, and Signature Gianni are the Big Three at the moment in men's mesh bodies. I have all three, and they all work well and are well-supported by designers. I don't think you can go wrong with any of those three. Slink male mesh body would probably be number 4, but they don't seem to be as popular lately. Signature also has a less-muscular, less-body-builder mesh body version called Geralt, which I think is quite attractive, but I have found that it does not have the same level of designer support as Gianni does. And as you said, one of he biggest problems with Aesthetic is that you look like every other Aesthetic mesh avatar, especially in the face. You can spot them a mile away.

Things are been particularly bad since the uplift to the cloud. I have a Linden Home that takes FOREVER to rezz now, even if I turn my draw distance in Firestorm down to 32m.

My peeve today is my personal pet peeve every day: female avatars with broken ankles. It's called ANKLE LOCK, people!!! Drives me up the wall... Pregnant tummy talkers are second. INSTANT Block!

O.K., I just posted a blogpost with my picks for Advent Calendar gifts for December 3rd (just Google "ryan schultz blog", and you'll find it easily enough). Oodles and oodles of nice gifts today (some days are like that!), including hair, skins, dresses, a lovely rose wreath for your hair, and even a couple of Ugly Christmas Sweaters™! The one from Entice is especially HIDEOUS. I won’t show it to you here, you have to go over to Entice and see it for yourself. I have to give the designer credit, though…you have to truly work at it to come up with something so horrible!

Sorry about the formatting...I just copied and pasted the text and image from my blogpost about Advent calendar gifts for December 3rd (just Google "ryan schultz blog" and you'll find it easily enough). --- If you are in the market for an Ugly Christmas Sweater™, for only L$1 you can pick up the following red sweater from Xtra Ordinari (warning: adult sim), which comes in versions to fit a wide variety of both male and female mesh bodies: And today’s Advent calendar gift from Entice is an absolutely HIDEOUS ugly Christmas sweater for women in purple and teal. I won’t show it to you here, you have to go over to Entice and see it for yourself. I have to give the designer credit, though…you have to truly work at it to come up with something so horrible!

I have decided that this is the perfect time to stay off all social media and all news media for a few days, BREATHE, and focus on cleaning through Vanity Fair's overstuffed inventory. So far I have thrown out about 30,000 items. On top of everything else, my location has just enacted an emergency, code-red coronavirus pandemic lockdown. I believe the ancient Chinese curse goes something along the lines of "may you live in interesting times". I am awaiting the locusts.

Yes, here: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/10/04/second-life-steals-deals-and-freebies-free-and-inexpensive-mesh-heads-and-bodies-for-male-second-life-avatars/ And I have had all kinds of problems getting any mesh clothing to fit the Roth 2 male mesh body properly. Your best bets for a free male mesh body are the Classic male mesh by The Meshbody (all TMP clothes fit it) and the Altamura freebie bodies (Slink, Singature, and/or Belleza Jake clothing usually fits them).

I just wanted to add that, if cost is an issue, I have a blogpost which I keep constantly updated, which looks at options for free or inexpensive mesh heads and bodies for female avatars. https://ryanschultz.com/2018/09/24/second-life-steals-deals-and-freebies-free-mesh-heads-and-bodies-for-female-second-life-avatars/ I have found that clothing designed for Maitreya Lara works well with the Altamura freebie bodies (tops fit almost exactly; you might some problems with bottoms). I have found that the new Kalhene Anya and Alexa mesh head and body package are 99% compatible with Maitreya Lara apparel and footwear (just a few problems with some long-sleeved tops around the wrist area). The Lucybody Atenea mesh body is also very compatible with Maitreya Lara clothing (and the feet are Slink compatible).If you opt for the dollarbie Classic mesh body by Meshbody (formerly kinown as The Mesh Project or TMP), there is quite a bit of TMP clothing out there for it, including lots of freebies at places like The Free Dove (check the signs for TMP). In other words, you do not need to spend thousands of Linden dollars to get a good-looking, mesh avatar appearance.

If you haven't bought that Maitreya Lara body yet, you might want to consider a less expensive alternative which is 99% compatible with Maitreya Lara apparel and footwear, and includes a fully-adjustable Bento mesh head as well as a Bento, Bakes on Mesh body: the Anya mesh body package from Kalhene. More details here on version 3.0 of Anya: https://ryanschultz.com/2020/10/04/version-3-0-of-the-kalhene-anya-and-alexa-bodies-a-great-bakes-on-mesh-bento-head-and-body-package-gets-even-better/ If you are shopping around for heads, I can highly recommend the free Strong Face Bento mesh head from the Genus Project. If you are looking for other heads and want alternatives to L$5,000 (or higher priced) models, here is my compilation of information on free and inexpensive mesh heads (and bodies) for female avatars, which I keep constantly updated: https://ryanschultz.com/2018/09/24/second-life-steals-deals-and-freebies-free-mesh-heads-and-bodies-for-female-second-life-avatars/ Hope this helps in your search! Let us know what you decide on 🙂

Yeah, sorry, I got triggered (even though I did check my transaction history immediately and saw nothing, @Chic Aeon).

Aaaand I just found this on the SL Marketplace. Shouldn't this sort of sick joke be banned? I actually fell for this.Somebody who wouldn't know any better would go after the person named as the thief by the MoneyGrabber. https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Greenies-MoneyGrabber-Bumper/19540664

And now I am getting similar messages in chat about this MoneyGrabber stealing money from other people. Is this some new form of smearing other [Redacted Name]'s reputation or the Seniha store's reputation? This is BIZARRE. The same name keep appearing in the [Redacred Name] messages:

Hello all, Well, this is a new one!!! I have an alt named Artist Scientist and I just teleported into the Seniha store sim and I got this message immediately: "{ Greenies } MoneyGrabber: [Redacted Name] stole 80L$ from Artist Scientist" I check my total balance and it's at L$1. I can't remember if it was higher than that before I teleported in (it was probably higher). Is this some kind of joke? Who should I report this to: Linden Lab? The owner of the sim? {Redacted name]? I've never come across this before and I'm stumped. By the way, I did NOT get any sort of warning that anything was about to withdraw Lindens from my account, which is what I would have expected to see before this happened (if it really happened; I wish I could remember my Linden balance before this happened!). Can anybody shed some light on this? Thanks.

I have discovered, quite by accident, that a blinking AO (from Kalhene) worked just fine on my Genus head, without having to use the full-blown Genus animation AO. So try a different head's animation override, it might work.

Second Life users tend to be significantly older overall than, for example, Fortnite users. One reason is that SL has been around for over 17 years now, longer than most other virtual worlds and games.

Chiming in late (as per usual!) but here's my take: Although the first avatars I created were male (like me), Vanity Fair is now my main avatar. I don't catfish; I make it clear who I am in my profile (and I link to my blog), and I also make it very clear I am not looking for sex or a relationship. Here's a blogpost I wrote about it back in January this year, and why the ability to be anybody (or anything) you want to be in Second Life is one of the platform's strengths: https://ryanschultz.com/2020/01/05/editorial-will-facebook-horizon-succeed-if-you-cant-be-anybody-but-yourself-what-fourteen-years-of-second-life-has-taught-me/ (For example, in Facebook Horizon, your avatar will be linked to your real-life Facebook profile. For that reason alone, I predict that it won't be very popular among SL folks.)

Chiming in late (as per usual!), but here's my take: I think most female avatars have migrated to mesh bodies, but I still come across many classic, system female avatars at places like Frank's Jazz Club. I have noticed that male avatars are more likely to stick with a classic avatar. I come across them much more often.

If you’re working on inventory, do you need to be able to read boxes and such? That could be a factor. Most places won’t let you do that.

Yes, I remember how busy KMADD used to be all the time. I picked up many group gifts of eyes and (prim) hair there. Their store never made the jump over to mesh. And I very fondly remember the lovely ladies' classic pumps at Shiny Things, which looked so good on classic, system avatar feet! I still have them in my inventory. By the way, if you ARE still rocking a classic, system avatar, Lindy's is the place to go for shoes. Most of their models also support classic avatar feet as well as the feet of most popular brands of male and female mesh bodies. Of course, most shoe stores no longer support classic avatar feet. Anybody remember House of Heart hair? It was all prim/flexiprim based and it has aged TERRIBLY now, but I used to swoop down every time they announced a hunt. Eventually I just boxed up all the HoH hair but there's a part of me that can't quite bear to delete the boxes (yes, I'm a packrat!).House of Heart also used to include blindingly bright face and body facelights that lit you up with an almost nuclear glow. Ahh, memories...

THIS. This alone is worth Premium in my opinion.

You sort your inventory?!?? I just let mine pile up (I'm at over 260,000 elements and counting....).

If you are into the blues, Bray's is a welcoming place that works hard to build s sense of community. I visited one day recently, and I had one of the friendliest welcomes I've encountered in over 14 years of visiting SL sims. Check it out. And yes, I agree that it can be hard to make friends in SL because people join it for so many different reasons. Follow your interests and you will find like-minded folk.

OMG I remember all the fuss over Stiletto Moody shoes! One in-world store I dearly miss is Eolande's, which had some lovely jewelry. I wish I had picked up a few more items before they closed down! Also, Pixeldolls. And I second Silent Sparrow, their stuff was awesome.