Ayashe Ninetails

As a major shopaholic who avoids mainstream events like the plague, I'll agree the 18-25 "let it all out" fashion style is what's popular, but absolutely is not all that exists. Just about every fashion style I can think of has a niche in SL.

Yep, if regular clothes, then I agree. You should try some of the other stuff, though. Some of it is sooooo cuuuuuute and it would work for any age. Valentina E, for example. Tons of really classy vintage wear (and a cheap Outlet upstairs with everything priced at 99L, last I checked). Just plucking out a random example from her Flickr:

I think this realllllllly depends on the fashion style in question. If we're talking about the regular mainstream casual day/night/club wear being sold at events, yeah I'll agree. Random example, but there would be goths and punks in their 50s and 60s in the nightclubs I hung out in in RL, and they were still rocking leather and PVC. Definitely didn't look out of place, and in some cases, it looked more classy on them. Also, the older biker crowd. Then you get styles that are a bit less age-specific - Afrofuturistic, cyber/futuristic, retro/vintage, boho, fantasy, steampunk, evening wear, business, resort, Victorian/Edwardian goth, Garconne, etc. There are places to buy all of that in Second Life and any age could rock those styles well.

YES! Thank you! I 100% agree with your entire post. If indeed the entire point of the article is about SL's jank (I completely missed that as I was so put off by some of the toxic language in there, I stopped reading rather quickly), Val's point is spot on. Every single game in existence has its own variety of that, and as a result, a shared community bonding experience (often including memes) that tends to rise from it. Now that we're getting multi-year alphas, open betas, and Early Access with so, so many big (and small) releases, this is even more of a thing these days because many games are released unfinished with VERY broken code (which allows for some fun glitches). I've played a lot of MMOs over the years - EQ2, WoW, Rift, Aion, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Wurm Online, Saga of Ryzom, Guild Wars 1 and 2, WildStar, ArcheAge, Age of Conan, Elder Scrolls Online, Project Gorgon, Black Desert Online, Everquest: Landmark, TERA, and dipped my toes into Final Fantasy XIV, Horizons/Istaria, Blade & Soul, Silkroad Online, and Anarchy Online. Whew, probably missed some but anyway, the point is I've played some ish, and I'm very familiar with the rather creative and innovative methods players use to find ways to break things to their advantage. Just like how we see this in single-player games (you mentioned speedruns and innovative builds in Minecraft - those are big - I remember seeing someone created a working cell phone in Minecraft many years ago), players love finding shortcuts and doing the impossible, and entire communities are built around shenanigans like that. The simplest example I can think of - raiding. Everybody stand here, the boss will then do this because he can't reach us, stack yourselves against this wall, don't step over this line, move here, fire this spell off, buff us with this, wait 3 seconds and then twerk. A raid leader who wants to save time and spend 45 seconds less on a boss WILL find a way. These types of leaders are often respected and highly sought out by players who prioritize efficiency, usually due to having time restrictions (a lot of MMO players are older these days and have full-time jobs and family obligations, so a 6-hour leisurely raid isn't in the cards). Other examples - getting into endgame places you're too early in the game to be at your level, soloing dungeons and raids that normally take multiple people so you can farm your own gear, skipping bosses in dungeons entirely and not pulling the whole dungeon onto you in the process, glitching certain mobs so they don't attack, the swimming hack low-level Night Elves use to get from Menethil Harbor to Westfall unscathed on Hardcore (permadeath) servers to avoid running through level 20+ zones, etc. Intentionally breaking and glitching stuff in games is so normal and routine, we've got devs like Larian helping us do it on purpose. In BG3, they even made their cutscenes to allow for whatever wild shenanigans the player gets up to. I own another game (not multiplayer) with its own in-game programming language you can actually hack to change the game itself and everything in it (called "Else Heart.Break()" if interested). From a game review: "Tired? Don't bother going to bed. Buy a cup of coffee, dive into its code, tweak the variables, and increase the caffeine content by 200 percent. Now you're wide awake." You can hack just about anything in that game - doors, banks, all kinds of objects, change time even. Lastly, I also remember some of the wild stuff players built in Tears of the Kingdom. 👀 One last big example - modding. So many tight-knit modding communities spring up and a good chunk of what they make is designed to fix things that are broken or just don't work due to game limitations and restrictions. Biggest example I can think of at the moment - that red shelf hack mod to fix floating clutter and decorating limitations in The Sims 4. That thing was essential. I find the way things work in SL to be much the same. People here find very creative ways to work beyond the platform's limitations and occasionally use its jank to their advantage. Kind of standard, really.

Lol, I'm so sorry for laughing. It just tickled me because I yell YEET all the time. 😂 I knew exactly what you meant to say there, though, and that just made me laugh harder. *gigglesnorts* I make up words all the time when I'm tired (especially when I'm tired omg), so please don't feel bad about mixing things up!

I think I get what you're saying here (I'm tired, you can yell at me if I'm wrong, lol), and if the writer is indeed going with this approach, I don't necessarily agree with it. The Fortnite and Roblox developers (using them as they were mentioned by name) may be a bit different here as they're allowing for players to use their tools to create their own things, but generally-speaking, game developers create what they know and some of them don't seem to know a whole lot outside of their own bubble. This is why the entire gaming industry has been having a moment lately where they've finally come to realize that they need to broaden their horizons, so to speak, and think of how to accommodate a much larger player base which does include people from all types of diverse backgrounds. Of course, we won't get into how that's been received on the players' end, as that's an entirely different discussion (and very off-topic), but I do not believe all (or most) game devs purposefully create the way they do as a means to control or erase anyone. In some cases, perhaps they didn't know any better and just leaned on what's "normal" to them. In others, maybe they didn't feel qualified to put forth an alternative view (this happens in narrative writing and character design where sometimes you can tell when characters are not created by a person familiar with the culture...oof). SL's quite different from that, just given how much freedom we've got to customize ourselves, our spaces, our environments, our experiences, and do our own thing. Perhaps that's what they were noticing? Am I on the right track here, or am I sounding like someone standing outside rambling to themselves...? 👀😂

The heteronormative callout is weird to me, too, for reasons. Like we don't have those attitudes in SL, really? Rly?

LMAO YEET. Sorry.

No, no, that's totally fair! I just have issues with this part of their quote: Fortnite is a battle royale and creative platform with a very large competitive scene (tournaments with lots o' $$$$$$), a huge creative/world-building scene (self-contained user-created games and events located in their own private and/or public spaces, like Roblox), and the occasional virtual concert. There's a LEGO survival mode now, too, and a racing game like Rocket League. Violent is not a word I'd use to describe it, either, considering the BR portion has the most PG "death" I've ever seen (you just glitch and disappear when eliminated). SL's combat is a lot more graphic in ways (think of those zombie-killing sims, and the like). Roblox is just a bunch of user-created worlds, usually with their own style, gameplay, and theme. Violent could apply, if you're in one of those horror or battle games, sure. Not sure about linear - I guess if someone's making an entire adventure game, maybe, but that's situational, too. Thing is, I could use those same three words to describe parts of Second Life, too (meh, maybe not linear, but that word doesn't quite apply to any of those games, really). And mainstream? Uhhhh...*pokes SL's fashion scene...*

You're welcome! I genuinely don't know as I'm unfamiliar with the AR system. Since the policy was just unveiled, it's possible the flags need to be updated for it? Totally guessing here, though. Hopefully someone is able to shed some light on that for you.

It reads to me like they don't play either of those games, either, LOL.

I think I'm thinking about Rebirth. AVI(L) should be for children/teens. Ignore my previous statement, lol. There are too many bodies, Rowan. TOO MANY BODIES. I don't know what's going on anymore! But yeah, I think the Marketplace was mentioned in the TOS. Yep...

Same. Mazzaro's stuff always looks fresh off the runway to me. Many outfits are downright classy (though he does design very thin, so the alphas might shave off a whole part of my avatar when wearing them, LOL). I can't say whether or not the designer uses RL runway/Fashion Week references for his stuff, but it sure looks like it sometimes. I might complain about the scrunched up sleeves on that set, though, but that's just me. The rest is super stylish IMO.

Just peeked at the Destination guide and took a quick look at Reddit where someone suggested it as a good place to go for a non-adult furry hangout 10 months ago. It's rated G. That might be why they picked it. Edit: It's also the oldest furry place, I think. Started in 2003.

Isn't that body used to make children, teens, and adults? I haven't seen it myself, but I could've sworn it was mentioned in one of our dozen other threads somewhere. I'd check that before submitting any ARs. Edit: Am I thinking of Rebirth? Heck I don't even know anymore.

I read up until I saw the phrase "ASMR-pilled." Then I started skimming. Then I quit. I'm a little bored with the whole "lemme write about a game/platform I don't even use!" thing in the gaming industry. It's so obnoxious, and so is the phrase "ASMR-pilled." That aside, the mention of prims just led me to believe this person has no idea what they're talking about. I won't quibble about Luskwood. It'd be like an outsider trying to get a pulse on the vampire community and hitting up Transylvania. I'm not going to expect a complete noob to Second Life to understand the inner workings of how mesh furries are made in 2024 (which would take them not only to several shops on the marketplace, but to human body stores, and good luck explaining all that to their audience).

I found it so, so so, sososososososo difficult to use a Lel female head for my human avatars. I just didn't like the "frozen at 21" look whatsoever, and some of them are rather rigid on the sliders and extremely difficult to break out of that range. I think I've demo'd almost all of them, and while I'm okay using some for fantasy avatars, I just can't do human. For those, I use Catwa for my standard 30s+ looks (more flexible on the sliders and they age with less effort), Bespoke (for 50s and older), and I've had some decent luck with Akeruka for young 30s. For male avatars, though, Lel is great. I've yet to have an issue making avies in their 30s with those. I agree with you so much on this. I wish I could post the photo of that girl I was talking about (I forget who she is now, but I saw her on a show a few weeks back). Very naturally pretty, but she had those lip injections and her cheeks were just blown out and yeah...damn shame. When I Googled and saw her listed at age 22, I gasped. Possibly. I tend to look at a lot of photos of celebrities, models, and regular men and women when styling my avatars. Now obviously, there may be plastic surgery involved with some of them, but I try to look for common features. For example, I'll browse photos of Grace Jones, Missy Elliott, Björk (where a ton of my fashion inspo comes from), Billy Porter, Halle Berry, Lenny Kravitz, Prince, browse runway and fashion models, look at older men and women in ads and on blogs, look at people on YouTube, etc. If I see common features in an age group (like prominent cheekbones, for example), I'll work that into my look. I agree with what you said about needing some features to be baked into the mesh, though. That helps SO much. My Bespoke head is that way (wrinkles and lines are part of the head, not the skin), and that's why I can use it for avatars much older than I typically aim for. Genus also does this now in their male line. I'm HOPING they do something like their Classic M002 for women (check it out - it's seriously gorgeous) because I'd snatch that up in a heartbeat. I LIKE creating mature avatars.

Hmm, I actually disagree with this somewhat. I think if you're going with the more popular Lelutka heads and out-of-the-box shapes that come with them (or even popular shapes and skins sold separately), I'd mostly agree, sure. Quite a few female Lel heads do get "stuck" in the early 20s, yes. On the other hand, if you aren't using those, aging avatars up isn't too difficult. I will say, it really, REALLY depends on "what kind of 30" (or 40, 50, etc.) you're going for. I have seen some 22-year-olds in real life who legitimately looked 40+ due to wayyyyyy too much botox and cosmetic shenanigans (oof). On the other hand, I frequently use real life models who are in their 50s to base some of my avatars on (both physical shape and fashion style), and you'd have to really stare at some of them to believe they're that old. Many look 30s. For example, at 30, some women don't have wrinkles or anything. I sure didn't, and still don't. Many don't get that until much, much older. Hair color, well, there's dye, for one, and there are people like me who started getting gray streaks (which I call my Rogue from X-Men hair) while still in high school. So it really, really depends on what look you're aiming for. Mature is pretty easy to achieve in SL. Middle-age can be done. Elderly isn't too bad either, with the right tweaks. But sometimes, a 30 doesn't look very different at all from a 24 and a 45 just needs the right base (head choice will really matter here) and with that mindset, you can make it happen.

Lol, I'm 100% serious. I browsed and binged websites and braved all kinds of dodgy links looking for more up-to-date and "lived" experience and information than I was finding in books on the subject. And boy did I find it. I joined social/dating sites after that to meet real people instead of just learning about them through their "okay guys, so here's my women in headphones photo collection..." fan sites. 😂 I very much agree with you on this, and I have certainly seen it both in SL and in the real world. I've gone shopping with a man who loved drag (RL) and saw how the store associates treated him. I dated a guy who wore long skirts (goth/rocker) and heard everything people were saying behind our backs when out in public. I've known (and still know) people who were/are closeted in RL but are fully able to live their lives in SL and I understand the challenges they face just trying to get through a day. It sucks, and I wish more knew how to mind their own dang business, except in cases of real, actual danger and harm. Obnoxiously, when you DO see things like that, very few seem to want to act, but hey, someone doing something I'm unfamiliar with - time to get involved!

Absolutely all of this. As bizarre as it sounds, I marvel at just how absolutely wholesome that series is. No spoilers, but if you play (or watch) Infinite Wealth, btw, the diaper gang has one of the most beautiful side stories in the entire game. Straight up tears. Just wow. This is a lesson I learned very, very long ago in my late teens. As a "too curious for my own good" sort, I spent a lot of time after high school graduation reading about fetishes. The curiosity probably started with listening to Dr. Judy's love/sex/relationship advice show on the radio every night for a few years prior (and later reading her book), LOL. Lots of fringe cases there. I learned a lot of rare things through both that and a bunch of shameless Internet research and by the time I got to SL, there was very, very little I didn't already know about. By that point, I'd been hanging out in adult communities and social media sites for years anyhow. Nothing ever bothered me or shocked me enough to consider an AR - even the more extreme things I ran across. By that point, I'd already adopted the "not mah business" approach. I don't have to involve myself in anything if I don't want to and nothing they do affects my real (or Second) life whatsoever. Leave em be. With the new rules, I do think some will need to be more careful (though I truly don't believe "do I look 17 or 18" will be as big of a deal here - that'd take a lot of effort and resources to investigate as opposed to something far more obvious) as I'm well aware a lot of the platform is not as "yolowhatever" as I am these days, but such is life. That's mostly why I'm not participating in the photo thread on the voting side. My vote would be too skewed through a combination of that experience plus knowing far too well what head/body/skin/clothing trends are popular here (shopaholic), and what looks get the most attention, following, and hype (on Flickr especially). It's very "in" to wear very young-looking avatars and has been for a long time. It'll be interesting to see if that trend eventually shifts. Looool. I know. Imagine the pamphlets and diagrams. 😂

Oh, I know exactly what it is. I'm no stranger to various RL fetish scenes and used to be more involved in SL's ages ago. We won't talk about the stuff I used to build. 👀 My point was I haven't met anyone into it here in SL. I have known and do know others involved in other scenes, though. The ARs are unfortunate. As I said, I'm very much a let people live sort of person, so that's absolutely the last thing I'd be doing (in fact, I don't think I've ever filed one in my entire 18+ years here and have no intention of starting now).

Maybe it's because I stopped going to adult hangout sims a long time ago, but I feel like the older SL era was a LOT more...adventurous. I'm sure some of the more wild...interests...still exist. I just feel they're a bit more hidden than they used to be. And yeah...vore. Ugh. No thanks on that one!!!!!!!!! Even then, I can't really recall ever meeting anyone with a diaper fetish here, and it's not really the most talked about thing, lol. When I saw it in Yakuza ages ago, I couldn't help but giggle. Yakuza games take all kinds of risks, though. Seeing the convo here reminded me of those scenes and I had to post one of them. Couldn't help it! 🤣 And no, I seriously doubt if anyone's running around as an obvious adult like that, they'd be a target. At least I hope not. Just let people live, lol.

Rowan I'm cackling. Surely you knew I was joking around. 😂 Though to think of someone at LL having to really think seriously about some of this very niche stuff is somewhat amusing to me. Not to say diaper fetishes are entirely rare or anything, but I've seen it in SL exactly that one time that girl posted her photo in that other thread. I'm more familiar with the RL scene, and of course I'm of the mind that as long as consenting adults are involved, have at it. In SL - well, I'm just glad I don't have to investigate the reports and work it out. 🤣

Depends. Oh god. What did I just say. Anyway, from the Yakuza game series... Would these guys get banned? I dunno. https://i.gyazo.com/e4795cde8dd73a412e9c217f05e0d896.jpg I placed it as a link instead of an embed. You're welcome, lol.

That's a good idea. I could set up a new profile for SL. My default mouse config just has copy/paste on my buttons because I'm lazy like that. 😂