Orwar

You could get a complete avatar off the MP, but I don't think it advisable. The way clothes are being made, they are only fitted to certain bodies - Maitreya by far being the most popular example. The bodies of those complete avatars barely have any clothes made for them at all, which would severely limit your style and expression down the line. It may feel overwhelming, but it really is fairly simple once you're set up. It absolutely is worth the effort of getting there, if your avatar's appearance is a concern to you. A better approach than buying a full avatar, is to buy a shape that looks appealing to you that includes a style card. That way, you'll just have to wear the shape and the 'style card' will be your shopping list for which head, body, skin, make-up, and hair that you need to look like the person in the ad. Mind, getting everything in one go can have a price tag which some may find off-putting.

𝕮𝖔𝖒𝖎𝖈 𝖘𝖆𝖓𝖘 ...

It's too late for that! Green tea has been displayed, no quarter will be given!

But have you heard Pope Francis' prog-rock album? It's been a little while since anyone told me I need Jesus. I feel left out. Perhaps my blasphemy has been lacking as of late .. Hm. I may have to do something about that .. Now where do I find volunteers who have nun costumes ..?

Brewed from real tea leaves. I mean. As opposed to what? Besides, only Assam brewed as per the Orwellian method counts as 'real' tea. Everything else just wishes it was tea.

Can't remember the name of it, but there is a train set from a Gacha that has a bit of an Orient Express theme to it ... Looked it up (Cat gave it to me as a Christmas present the other year, just had to open my inventory) - DRD, Arctic Express.

Cold tea never works. Coffee can be warm or chilled, but not room temp. Iced tea is an abomination.

The MP is still borked, and the forums' performance seems compromised as well.

People are very different with how they use their contacts. Some even waste profile space to make an aggressive comment about how they'll get hurt in the feels if someone adds them without asking. Those who add me either learn that I'm not available at all times, or sort themselves out. Personally I seldom add people, when I do I usually ask first though. Some people have been on my list for years and years, some without us having spoken for a very long time - I'm not really bothered by it, but I will unfriend people if they never made a lasting impression and I'm bored. I never pay attention to nearby chat to be annoyed by people logging in or out anyway.

I mean, now I'm curious.

AHA! I knew I'd seen that option -somewhere-, but I was staring myself blind at the Preference menus without finding it. Thanks!

Oooor ...

Just had a quick look - no, you can add the first system layer rather than wearing it. No, things that you can only wear one of (and always have to wear one of - skins, shapes, system eyes, system hair) doesn't have any add option. I wish you could at least change the default double-click action from being 'wear' to 'add' so that if you accidentally double-click something in your inventory, you can just take it off again without having to run off to put your head back on (although to be fair I probably shouldn't wear my head on my right hand - but even when* I do get around to fix that, it'll be my trousers or shirt instead). *Soon™ I also wish creators would put it into their in-world routine to change the attachment point of their stuff before boxing and shipping their stuff ... But that's not happening. ... Come to think of it, the last time I did double-click an object in my inventory it was my beard that got knocked off - I now have it attached to my jaw instead. Woo, progress!

Indie music is by its own definition not really supposed to be found on any mainstream platform. Spotify have made it much easier for people to upload their own music as of late though, I know quite a few people who use it for their own music projects.

Spotify absolutely isn't 'all edm'. I've discovered a fair bit of new music through it in several different genres. Sure, if you use the Spotify radio you may get stuff that isn't for you (just like listening to a radio station might not always play good music), but you can just skip a song if it's not to your liking. There also are countless playlists that you can look and listen through. For browsing and discovering new music, it's great. Another way to find new music is to listen to radio channels (there are thousands of free radio stations around the web), or if you're into a specific genre you can discuss that music on various forums or keep up with music bloggers.

I know. It's better than a cat!

As ValKalAstra said, it really depends on what sort of preparations and editing you want for the shots. I've seen people offering to do profile pics at L$50 a pop here on the forums, and I know of people who'll charge you L$7-10K for the same. Well, not 'the same'. Price isn't necessarily an indicator of quality - always check the portfolios of any potential photographers before you decide whether to commission their services.

That's been another thing which has been discussed a bit (buy clearly not enough) here. As people of my generation start popping out kids, my FB feed has largely turned into a peculiar mix of people screaming political nonsense back and forth, pagan crafts, and naked children sitting in sinks or being snuggled by Rottweilers. Those infants have no say and no control over how their parents portray them to basically the entire world, and if people are careless with their privacy settings (which most don't even seem to realise), that has the potential to be used against them - or worse, end up in the hands of paedophilic networks. Posting pictures of your kids on FB is nothing like when my parents put a photo of infant me sitting in a wash bowl in a frame on a living room side table; that could only be seen by people who were invited to our house. Personally I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's an issue of not receiving consent from your infant children, but it is always risky putting up private pictures on the Internet. Especially on sites where people's private information is the primary commodity.

It depends entirely on what you want to do with it. It is a great tool that does have a lot of features, but you don't have to learn them all. The workflow for creating an alpha texture in Gimp is very straight-forward: Open the UV map for the body you are using in Gimp. Make sure that the layer has an alpha channel (this can be done either by clicking 'Layer -> Transparency -> Add Alpha Channel' or by right-clicking the layer in the brushes & layers window and clicking 'Add Alpha Channel' there). Select the eraser from the toolbox, and select the brush you want to use in the brushes & layers window (for alpha masks I prefer sharp lines, so the circle with 100 hardness, i.e. no gradient, is my go-to) Look at your avatar in-world whilst wearing the UV as a guide, see what lines are visible, then erase everything that you can't (or shouldn't) see under the clothing you are making your alpha for. Once finished with the eraser, export the image as a TGA or PNG file. Try it in-world as described above, and once you are happy with the result, upload the texture into SL to finalise your alpha mask. You could basically do it pretty much the same way in MS paint. The learning curve for Gimp doesn't start getting any steep before you get into editing photos, and even then the tools themselves aren't the difficult bit as long as you know which features you wish to use and how to plan your workflow, the 'difficult' part is generally knowing how much (or rather, how little) you want to change for the image to not turn into a weird mess. The trick is to just play around with it, see what things do, maybe read or watch some tutorials for how to do specific things (there are tons of tutorials on YouTube for various features, from how to adjust colour balance and exposure to how to draw hair and make different effects and using different filters). Gimp is pretty much comparable to Photoshop as far as image editing goes - the basics really are basic, but it has the potential to do very advanced things as well. Even then, it's a matter of learning how to use the tool comfortably and figuring out how to apply it to achieve the artistic effect you want for your images. I have been thinking about making a tutorial for photo editing on the forums, but I figure it's a tutorial best done in video format since there'd be much too many images to post, to show each step in detail.

And be quick to clear the landing point when you go event shopping, to avoid getting knocked over yourself!

I'll just throw the obvious go-to shop for mainstream fashion out there: Blueberry. Quality is generally consistent and maintains a high standard which, in my mind, certainly is a requirement for photography purposes. Price is usually around L$250 per piece (so L$500 for a top & bottom combination - and whilst they mostly sell their items as sets, you absolutely can mix & match them). I'd also suggest you check out the weekly sales; Fifty Linden Friday (FLF), Saturday Sale, Weekend Sale, and Humpday Sale are weekly events that offer a wide variety of stuff (not always just apparel though). You can find galleries on Seraphim / Facebook so that you don't have to visit all the stores every week - prices are usually L$50-L$75, and sometimes it's per piece and colour, and sometimes it's for fatpacks. As those sales include a large number of creators, the quality varies a lot, but there's usually some absolute bargains in each round. Yesterday I got these jeans for just L$75, for example: They're designed for high heels though, hence the feet clipping - still haven't gotten Mina any heels!