Maitimo

I still have some from... must be 2008 or 2009. I am sure I spent a skall fortune on it. I have seen noob freenises that look better.

That's really down to the customers. The level is reached when enough people have cancelled their premium payments or given up their private estates, and deleted their SL accounts. Its up to each individual to decide how much disruption needs to happen before they do that. And then its up to Linden Lab to decide how many deleted accounts is enough before they consider SL no longer viable, and pull the plug permanently.

My favourite female skin for Catwa is Celine by Egozy. Shown here on the Margeaux head.

This one is stunning.

Careful you don't short-circuit yourself!

I just realised that I missed off one of the OP's original questions. Have you ever experienced an avatar appearance that felt uncomfortable? Not a whole avatar, but certain features, yes. I already mentioned how wrong it feels for me to have two hands. It also feels very uncomfortable and wrong for me to have breasts. I have also dabbled with a variety of aninal avatars, not anthro furries but four-footed critters, and that doesn't really do anything for me at all. They look great sometimes, but I don't see or feel anything of me in them.

I wanted to come back to this one specifically to thank you for your kind words, though I am not sure that "strength" is the right one. "Creativity" perhaps? When I put together an avatar, it's no less a work of creativity than it would be if I were combining paper, textiles and other things into a collage. That it's digital makes no difference; digital art has been considered a valid art form for decades. Doing it with an androgynous avatar is to some extent doing SL in "hard mode". Mesh bodies and clothes made it harder than it was with Classic avatars, Bakes on Mesh has made it easier again. I look to @Skell Dagger's Syd as my inspiration and I wish I could achieve even a quarter of that artistic standard. And that's the real beauty of SL, isn't it? Freedom. It gives freedom to us to express ourselves in whatever way we wish; that's why I think an avatar's appearance says so much about the person behind it. I don't mean whether a person has all the latest mesh or whatever, but how much thought and imagination they put into how they look. I couldn't achieve this fluidity in RL, because human bodies just aren't that changeable. Even the "best" I could do would (a) not be terribly different from the way I look now and (b) be prohibitively expensive and long-winded, and not actually that fluid at all. I cannot decide to shave off my beard today, and put it all back tomorrow, for example. SL gives freedom to trans and non-binary people to explore their true selves in a safe place where they won't get thrown out of their homes, lose their jobs or get actually murdered for daring to be different. That's the real tyranny right there. Sometimes it's not just force of habit, it's fear of actual loss of livelihood, or loss of life. Being trans or non-binary is doing RL in "hard mode". I have no plans, or even desire, to be feminine or non-binary in RL. The itch just isn't powerful enough to make it worthwhile. But sometimes I look at Steampunk or Victorian costumes for women, with corsets and so on, and I think it would be awesome to wear something like that in RL. Maybe I do have a little of that itch, in RL, to present as rather than identify as. I would still be just a guy in a dress.

You've reminded me there of one other thing I keep the same - I always use the same head. Mainly because they're too expensive to get a collection of them. But if they were cheaper, I probably would.

I am answering this on my phone so I can't post pics, will probably add some in when I get home. These questions are very relevant to me right now. And it's all Greville's fault. 😁 From 2006 to 2017 I rarely changed my appearance at all, except to upgrade skin and hair, and eventually get a mesh body and head. Even my clothes were the same basic outfit with the only change to upgrade them to better quality. Then in late 2017, I discovered Chiaroscuro, owned by Greville Oh, and specifically their themed costume parties. So I would get a new costume together each week and it wasn't always just a change of clothes. Sometimes I changed my skin, hair and eyes too. Added wings, tails, horns. And I realised that I liked experimenting, so I started changing my appearance more often, not just for Chiaroscuro. About a year ago, I figured out that my choices for these costumes could be greatly increased by adding a female body to my collection, so I bought Maitreya and figured out the V-tech chest, and for a slim elven shape it worked well. Though I originally intended to use it only on occasion, its become a permanent change. And then, Greville and I somehow became a couple, and one day he asked me if I had ever done drag. I said no, but the idea intrigued me, so I gave it a try and to my surprise I actually liked it. It felt liberating, I originally went with Maitreya to increase my options, and now they increased again. I think of my SL self now as fluid; gender-fluid, species-fluid, appearance-fluid. I still default to a red-haired male elf, and that will always remain my "true form", and there are still a few things that remain constant. First, no matter how feminine I appear to be, I am still male. Flat chest, no boobs, male "bits". My appearance may be gender-fluid but my identity isn't. And my missing arm, which has been part of me for so long now, it just feels wrong otherwise. A few days ago I made my avatar with two hands in order to wear a jacket that looked odd with one hand. After ten minutes it bugged me so much, I took off the hand AND the jacket. So there are two questions here. First, does my current mood affect my avatar's appearance? I would say yes to this, if by "mood" you mean "what do I fancy doing today?". I will adapt my avatar depending on where I want to go. There are places where the people there don't know that I sometimes present feminine, and other places where they don't know I sometimes present masculine, so I pick whichever is the convenient one for that place. Some places will welcome fantasy avatars like demons, angels etc and some don't. I guess it's no different from changing clothes to meet a dresscode. However, if by "mood" you mean "emotional state", then no, that doesn't seem to have much effect. I haven't (yet) noticed any correlation with my emotions and my avatar's appearance, but it might be an interesting thing to keep a record of. The other question is much more difficult to answer. Does my avatar's appearance affect my mood? My fancy-of-the-moment, or my emotional state? I am pretty sure that the answer to both of these is no, however the places I visit and the people I hang out with certainly do affect my mood, so there is perhaps an indirect link. Yesterday I went to one of my favourite places as an angel, purely because of an offhand comment one of the guys made in group chat. This perfectly illustrates how I'm blending gender right now. The body is Maitreya but the chest is flat, with body hair. Facial hair. And then, a feminine tattoo, and make-up. I was wearing high-heeled boots too, and teeny-tiny little booty-shorts, but you can't see those here. I rarely think "I am in the mood to be an X today, where can I go as an X?" I am much more inclined to think "I want to go to Place Y today, what avatar can I go there as?" But even when I do, my underlying sense of self doesn't change. I may look like a demon or an angel or a mermaid or a chibi dragon, but I am not roleplaying a different character, nor does my identity or personality change when my avatar changes. The way I act, the way I feel, and who I am, is no different regardless of whether I look masculine or feminine, human, elf or something else. All of these things may change over time. And they probably will.

Showing off some new ink;

One of the tricks I find that often helps, if the pack includes standard sizes as well as fitmesh, is to wear jeans/pants a size or two smaller than the top.

I have never been part of a SL "family", but every time I meet someone with the last name Luminos, I call them "cousin". It seems to me that 99% of the drama in SL involves members of a family, who become non-members shorty after.

No. It was a suggestion, a few pages in, but it's not part of the original rules. Don't expect realistic male avatars N O O B S

I just took a look at this again - my complexity when naked (without genitals) comes in at just over 18,000 including hair. I was very pleased to realise that my favourite hair (Alyssa by Magika), which I wear nearly all the time, is under 2k. The stump I use on my arm was a culprit for a while, at around 6k. It's part of a linked, hud-controlled set which includes both arms in several different positions. Since I use only one of them, and it's mod, I just unlinked all the parts, stuck the Omega script in the one I use, and now that part is only 600. Doing this also means I can do away with the hud controller script that listens to the hud (which I also never used). The V-Tech flat chest mod is just under 2k. No problem with that. My favourite baggy jeans from Krankhouse are under 1k, but my favourite top, from the same store, is 10k, which is kind of annoying. My favourite sneakers are 3,300, however I can save half that by detaching my feet, which would be alpha'd out anyway. I don't normally wear any jewelry or anything else, so the whole outfit comes in at 32k. Adding genitals has a big impact; my Aeros is 35k, but I have a much lighter set that weighs in at 3k (and costs only L$49). I still wear that one more often than the Aeros.

Same for me. I have used all ten of my Picks and only three of them are for places I like.

This is usually an issue with your internet connection being insufficient or unstable. Check with your service provider for service issues, and if you are on wireless, try plugging into your router with sn ethernet cable instead.

That's just basic politeness though. You might be busy, deeply involved in something that you don't want interrupted. "Can I ask you a question?" is really asking permission to engage in a conversation with you, and giving you the opportunity to say no, if it's not convenient. You might even be AFK, and getting no response from that initial reachout would tell me that it's not worth pursuing at this time. Sometimes I think that the initial "Hi" is really just the equivalent of dialling someone's number to check if they're home.

Every appetiser tastes incredibly tangy O L I V E

Spooky criminals steal Halloween candy T R I C K

Nekos don't use special bodies, they just use an ordinary classic or mesh body so they can wear any normal clothes. Rave and grunge styles are particularly popular but I don't care for them and don't wear them even when I'm neko. Most furry bodies are the same, except for the head and sometimes legs, so again they can wear pretty much anything. However some furry avatars, particularly Jomo, use custom mesh bodies and can only wear clothes made specifically for them. Which is why my Jomo lion is usually naked. Kemono bodies are popular with furries, again they need specially made clothes but there is a much bigger choice.

The only one I have seen who was good enough for me to remember his name, is Jack Slade.

People design their avatars in all sorts of ways. Some people choose then to be as close to their RL selves as possible. Some people choose them to be different. Some people choose to keep them the same all the time. Some people choose to change them slowly over time. Some people change them frequently and drastically. Some people choose things about their avatars that I haven't even thought of. None of these decisions imply anything about whether they are "struggling" with the differentiation between SL and RL. If you want to make veiled attacks on me, I do not care. But I do care if you make veiled attacks on other people here, and I will call you out on it.

You asked why anyone would, on a public forum. I answered why I did, because I presumed you were interested in the motivations that people might have. I tend to make that assumption, you see, when people make posts on public forums. That's what forums are for. In any case, even if you are not interested, plenty of other people here are interested. My response isn't just for you.

Nekos definitely do wear clothes, as they are almost human except for the addition of cat-ears and a tail, so they need to wear clothes everywhere that a human would. Furries are slightly more likely to go naked, though outside of adult furry clubs, I see them clothed more often than not. I am furry sometimes and will wear shorts at a minimum, except with my Jomo lion, which has so little clothes made for it and nothing else fits. As far as sex goes, nekos are as likely to do it as humans are, and furries are slightly more likely, though they call it "yiffing". Most furry clubs, with the notable exception of Luskwood, are on adult-rated regions. That probably tells you more than you need to know.