InnerCity Elf

Not bad either. Hmmm, seems he's called "Vitalstatistix" for some of us global folks, although I think "Majestix" is better for a Gaulish chieftain. Also, sadly couldn't find an image of him actually hiding under his shield, but he does in some book, read them all as a child!

Not through in-world activities, I think, unless subconsciously, but I've "actively rediscovered" as well as newly discovered some music through browsing the "What are you listening to?" forum thread. 🎶

"Thunes, a global cross-border payments company, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Tilia LLC, an all-in-one payments platform. Tilia is licensed in 48 US states and territories" While not in the US myself, I had heard of Tilia, but never before of that global one; talk about bubbles... My first thought, although mine was more visual, Majestix under his anti-skyfall shield🛡️. Well, whether it has indeed to do with the age... verification thing, or not, who knows, doesn't matter either. I've long ago stopped "identifying" with anything bigger than around-the-corner mom-and-pop shop style enterprises, there are just too many companies sold, and just founded to be sold, to get too cosy with them, no matter how much passion the founders radiate in their mission statements on their about pages I'm sure it will be great for everyone involved, voluntarily or not, and that it won't be just one more step towards the absolute and global financial transparency that we're all yearning. Oh, for those times, when you could just anonymously buy PaySafe cards for your little bit of harmless SLentertainment without having to grant your bank person, finance authority, potential landlords, and whoever knows whom else, insight into where your entertainment budget goes. Transparent new world.

Thanks! Yes, I don't have actual wrinkles in RL either, even though over the 30-40s range, but that's what the "aging options" 😂 I found, so I tried those. I've had decent success with "older" skin before mesh heads, but not since. As for hair, I do get more greys now RL, but in SL, I always see dark roots, light rest, and even in "blacks/whites/greys" packs, makes sense for the "dyed my hair!" look, but not for mimicing, e.g., greying brown hair... Well, I'll try my "luck" 😄 with age spots, thanks for the idea, and some more head/skin trial and error.

May I ask how you do the aging up of the Catwa head? I've tried several wrinkle/dark under-eye circles/aging add-ons that I found on marketplace, but even with high transparency, didn't really work. I'm wondering if it's maybe a "skin incompatibility" and I'd need to find a good skin/aging add-on combo (don't want a new skin but might for a really nice aged result). Yes, still Catwa, using two accounts, and my main still has the first and only Catwa head that I bought her, and no other heads. I take ages to decide on head, body, skin, and then cling to them for ages. I switch hairstyle and clothes sometimes for a change, and I have a lot of AOs and single animations. The other account, I don't actually know which brand head, I'd need to log in and check, but think it's evoX. I like the other account's head/skin/shape-fiddling combo better, actually, and was thinking about getting the same for the main account 😅 Come to think of it, my main account still has separate Slink hands and feet 🫣. It's not the money, I happily pay for other things, or tip, maybe I identify too much with my avis' general look to want to change major things.

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Ogham Grove/72/31/62 A quick landmark to one of the sims. Got in on first try, my FPS took a hit but bob up and down in the 50s and not too much lag, but, yes, there are definitely temptations galore, bad for not wanting to spend money...

Such a nice HQ, Paul! Hung out for a while, but at an odd hour, and the group was silent, so I went on an SL hair salon exploration after a while, need a more exploration suitable hairdo, after all 😅. I'll be back to check out the notecard giver again, or add one with an exploration idea, when I'm sure I can be somewhere at a certain time. Looking forward to an exploration with some fellow explorers in any case.

The same kind of messages, or did they seem different "in purpose"?

Looking for a height that'll work for a non-skybox project on mainland.

In case you don't find any, you could consider creating one, and or if you also enjoy roleplaying, it might work to have a character on a sim where you can rent a place as the home of your character, or, even better, a shop that you can make into a books&plants shop and thus create a meeting space for like-minded roleplayers, and maybe then make it an out-of-character thing (too), with a group and group messages discussion if members in-world at the same time. Or just enjoy it in-character, whatever works best. (Persephone's herb garden sounds wonderful, I might want to spend some time on the marketplace now to see how plants and such evolved since I was shopping last... 🫣.)

A gift card like mentioned above should be nice, or maybe "x% off on your next purchase after x purchases", but you should ask someone official, not on the forum, to make sure it's allowed. Oh, you did, well, just remember those are just random forum member suggestions, don't sue us if you try, and it's not allowed.

"If you can wait and not be tired by waiting"T This line might be the major "coping mechanism" needed, as well as the explanation of SL's bounce/retention rate. People who can wait (not (just) literally wait around, but more hang around, try this, go there) long enough for whatever to happen that they are looking for in SL to actually happen, will probably stay, others not. What do I do to cope,... not really much, I guess, just log back in another day, what dies last, is hope.

Indeed! I'll make sure to remember to add an unmodifiable T&Cs notecard that specifically lists that none of my modifiable creations may be recoloured neon green. Should I ever sell modifiable creations. Or creations, at that. Jokes aside, my guess is also not wanting to be bothered/spend more time. I'm self-employed, RL, and while some customers are absolute sweethearts, for some, usually, type micro-manager, or imagined-semi-knowledgeable in what they pay me to do, I do such a lot of not really billable additional work, explaining, that it can be a real pain and inspires 80:20 thoughts. Maybe similar for SL creators.

I haven't (apart from maybe very general and self-evident things like "don't take yourself too seriously", "don't take it too seriously", "people are often different than you think, if meeting RL, you might like those you thought you didn't, and vice versa", or such; if anything, I'd need advise myself, I tend to overthink things), but! happy belated birthday! 🎂 🦁

Elements...makes me think I want "weather" all over the mainlands. ☔

If it's something you think you might enjoy and would like to do for a longer while, read the rules before you engage. I do mostly role play, most of the role play sims have lots of rules, mythology, and whatnot. And while you might think, once you read the rules at one place, it's fine, they'll not be that different in another place, that can be true, but often isn't. I know it's annoying to read all that stuff, when you want to jump in, but if you don't know that certain things aren't allowed, because you didn't read the rules, and it's a "bannable offense", that's on you. I admit that, after having checked out dozens of roleplay sims over the years, I just skim rules, which tend to be the same or very similar, or self-evident, for the most part, and pay attention to things that might really make for trouble and can differ, like consent-sim or not, dresscode, and such. If it's a place that really seems I'd like, I'll read all the stuff. If I start playing without having checked all the info, and do something against the rules, and they'll ban me, too bad, I'll read more thoroughly next time. Might be overreacting on their part, in my opinion, but they might not want to waste their time on cretins like me who didn't read all the rules, or had a bad day, or whatever. Their sim/,game, their rules. That's nothing to down my self-esteem, however. I risked playing without reading the rules, well, sometimes, it works out, great, time saved, sometimes not, next time, I'll spend that time, one 'fail' factor dodged. Don't take it personal. Until you're somewhat of an esteemed regular (which takes time, and rule-reading, in some cases), you're just a random person. And people who read and stick to the rules, might get cross with the 'management' if others don't read and stick to the rules, and still may play, many if not most people are like that.

Yes, that's what I meant, threads like this one might be better in a sub forum there than in "General Discussion".

Perfectly reasonable. Maybe there should be a dedicated sub forum for "Hi, I'm new", "Hi, I'm back", "Bye, I'm leaving" posts in either "Make friends" or "Missing people".

A shopping HUD is definitely not one of those things I never knew existed but didn't know how I lived without, once I knew.

'Less seriously' is probably a good idea, and as you already have it in your mind, give it a try, as you're not happy with how 'too seriously' is going, and 'too...' may well be 'too...'. It's hard to give concrete advice, as you're not giving concrete info. What kind of apparently unforgivable 'mistakes' or 'fails' are you talking about? What do you say or do that people 'don't accept', what form does that take, do they actually say something to make you feel diminished, or is that just your interpretation, do they ghost you, ...? If you give some actual examples of what keeps happening to you, maybe people can tell you if a different approach might help, or if you somehow just keep running into silly or even mean-spirited people, or... In any case, I think, 'less seriously' is a good idea for SL generally; even more serious friendships usually start from less seriously, and you should be less affected by how others react or not react to you, if you don't take it seriously. Try to not give others power over how you feel. If you didn't do anything unforgivable, don't let them make you feel like you did, try to learn from your interactions, but try to not let it affect your self confidence. SL, or RL, that's all the same in that regard. You decide how you feel, not others. It should be fun, you're definitely getting that part right.

That sounds really annoying indeed. I don't know about the technical ways that person might have to find you "technically" despite ditching that Macbook and using a VPN, but some non-technical thoughts. Maybe your "different social circles" aren't as different as you think? Probably pretty much we all tend to go to maybe not the same - if we want to avoid someone - but still similar places, quite obviously, as usually, we won't suddenly completely change our interests and personality. If they are an actual stalker type, and with that behaviour, even pretending to be your bff, and all, not much doubt there, they might be fine with investing the time to stalk profiles in "likely places", and even if you don't deliberately let him know it's you any more in your profiles, there might be enough "tells" for them in those, or even in how your avi is set up, to know or guess, or strike up enough conversations with enough people at such places to guess or know it's you from conversation, they might also know your likely online-times, ... Things you could try might be being online when they probably aren't if possible, being very careful with your profiles, go to REALLY "out-of-character places", think about things you could say in conversations with new or "new" people that would either make them think "oh, that can't be her, next!", or might reveal their identity to you early on, before you've invested time in your new "bff". All that won't help if they really have a way to technically identify you despite your technical measures, though. In which case, I'd be extra hyper careful with giving out personal RL info than you should be anyway.

From the new selection, I quite like 'Ravenwood', but not enough to pay the equal of my monthly electricity bill. Wondering what the idea behind 'Zennor' is, something about zen? Or was it picked to have one that looks kind of "neutral"? I did put in some suggestions, when it started, but don't remember if they also asked to submit the story/idea behind the name if not obvious. Also, do they keep old suggestions for future consideration, or do they toss everything after picking the latest batch and only new ones are in the draw for the next round... and is there a public alphabetical list of already existing and 'rejected, forget it' names, so people don't keep submitting the same ones? Or are there so few new suggestions by now, that they make up three quarters of the new names themselves... Also, I'm pondering far too many inconsequential things...

Oh, awesome initiative, that sounds as if it could work so well with regular bumping of the thread with a pic from the last exploration. I'll join the group when in-world later. European timezone here, but somewhat flexible, as long as it's not my middle of the night

Yes, if you live in or close enough to big places, that's lucky, in that regard. If not, not so much. I've checked my IP regularly for a while, just to know how closely "it hits home". The bigger issue with this than alt guessing is combining that with "social hacking info" with the end goal of not necessarily doxxing but "knowing", potentially stalking, threatening,... But that's a different can of worms, of course, and people who want to avoid it, need to be careful with their profiles, giving out RL info, etc., anywhere online, of course. The majority doesn't care about others or generally wishes any other human well, so you'll probably be fine, but there are always less than well-meaning people, too, so you'll never be completely safe.

Yes! I've had trouble with them, too; they, and the platform I used, which used Cloudflare (and never had issues with that platform before they started using Cloudflare), kept telling me the other is at fault, and to take it up with them, forth and back, back and forth, meanwhile I couldn't access the platform (used for work, not fun, at that). Eventually, the issue went away, but I'm rather sure by chance, not by their doing.