Ayashe Ninetails

Upgrading from Lona to Flona wouldn't be too difficult, all things considered. Flona is what, HDPro's newest? It's really pretty, but I haven't personally demoed it. I wear the free Queen HDPro. I'm looking at Lona right now, and I do see some similarities with Flona (maybe you'd want to tweak the nose a bit). So you should definitely give it a demo! The good news - upgrading from base Catwa to HDPro doesn't require much of anything at all. You'll be able to still use Catwa makeup appliers (even if they aren't HDPro), BOM is compatible between the two (you can also rock Genus and Evo classic if you really wanted to), and you'll have many skin options for darker tones, which is huge. Izzie's has a lip concealer that I use to properly fit my lipstick, if needed, since Catwa HDPro-specific lipstick is somewhat limited, but you can wear anything not EvoX and get it to work out with some fixes. The biggest reasons to upgrade IMO are the animations and the HUD. I absolutely loathe Lel's anims and much prefer Catwa's, even though they're way more exaggerated. They're just hilarious to me and I can't give them up full-time (I have almost every anim in rotation on a cycle). The new HDPro anims are really expressive - slightly moreso than base (in the eyes, especially). As for the HUD, the old Catwa HUD? It's an absolute nightmare and you can completely forget it ever exists. The new HDPro HUD is so much better, fully streamlined, easy to understand, and comes with quite a lot of options. The facelight is HUD-controlled - intensity, brightness, etc. I have mine off and never use it, but it's there for if/when you need it. But the major, major benefit to staying with Catwa for me personally is the eyes. The HDPro allows you to apply two completely different eye textures to the left and right eye, which is something I do frequently and cannot accomplish with Lelutka as Lel only applies textures to both simultaneously. I have to resort to separate mesh eyes in that case. But Catwa's HUD allows for eye selection before using a third-party applier, which rocks in my specific case. As for Angel Rock, I'm familiar with them, but I don't really like their skin tones at all. If you're dead set on them, try demoing some base Catwa skins and see if they work out. I'm not sure if they upgraded to HDPro. There are other skin stores that make great tones, too. I'm just really not into the Velour bodies whatsoever and do my best to avoid having to wear their body skins, so I'm a bit picky with my choices. The highlighting is so wrong to me. Right now, I'm currently in an older Velour face that works with an ItGirls body, thankfully. So anyhoo, grab the demo, and grab skin demos. If you want to browse skin stores that do HDPro, one of the Catwa CSRs maintains a gallery here - https://www.flickr.com/photos/mjbella/galleries/72157716173821608/

Awesome! I wear HDPro, so I can help ya out with that when you make your post. Peeve: We really do need more HDPro skins, tho. The struggle is real (well, we've got some great ones but...I'm a skin hoarder so).

Lol, that's exactly what you *shouldn't* do.

Give it to me, of course. I'll work for it. Need something decorated or want a makeover? 😂

Congrats! It really is a unique feeling. I totally understand what you mean about feeling less fear, too. That happened to me as well when I moved to London, once I got settled in, though perhaps for different reasons. I let that lack of fear go straight to my head to where I felt way too confident and comfortable walking around in the middle of the night alone, lol. Barely anyone around on the streets but me, leaving the club on a Tuesday night or grabbing groceries, oh this is fiiiine off I go! Home isn't that far it's only a 25 minute walk I got thiiiiiiis! 😂 I felt so free living in London, but it only intensified when I moved to Oxford. It was cheaper for me, it was very friendly, plus there were very affordable super comfy coach buses that ran between the two cities every other hour so I could make it back to London for classes. And yes, I still found myself taking walks to the grocery store at 1am. Old habits die hard I guess, lol. I miss Oxford so much, but I'm not sure if I'll return. My brain is locked in "time to try something new" mode.

Ghana basically reached out to Black Americans after the Floyd protests and said y'all need to get your butts over here 😂. They've done that before, too. That's likely why I'm seeing some recently written blog posts like screw it off we go! Though the number of Americans that actually settled over there is pretty small - around 3,000, last I saw. Still an interesting proposal, lol. I believe they've got a streamlined dual citizenship process, but again, I reallllllly haven't looked into it too deeply yet.

Nope, not retirement only. Same as most places - need property, money, or a job with a company. You used to be able to set up a business for it, but that might have changed in 2021. The remote work/freelancer visas other places offer are likely my best option, since I have little intention to go back to being a full-time employee.

I've been to Cornwall. It's super cute and quite serene, but definitely not for me.

That's a reasonable concern for sure. There are a LOT of articles around the innerwebz about people who relocated/are relocating to Mexico, if you want to read some first-hand experiences and see what conditions are really like (might be YouTube videos, too, now that I think about it). Personally, Mexico is just not on my radar. Not really sure why. Just not really feeling it. Welcome! And oh gosh, I don't even know. There's just so much research involved in finding somewhere that'd work for me. I need to dedicate some time to really going through some places to see what's what, but so far, I have looked a *little* into Panama and liked what I saw, and I keep seeing blogs about relocating to Ghana, so now I'm curious to see what that's about. Africa in general is a really interesting option, but that would require sooooo much research as I've never even stepped foot on that continent before. Annnnd, my college roommate absolutely swore to the heavens that I would fall deeply in love with Dubai, but THAT is like...yeah only if I hit a lotto jackpot or two or married a billionaire, LOL. I don't really have a top three. Much of my thinking is "where can I live in freaking peace?" and I just kind of take things from there. Islands are another option - the slower pace on some of them is appealing. My brother swears by Trinidad, and I've been there and yeah it's really nice - he had trouble making it a permanent move, though (due to work visas, as usual), so that might be a bit of a struggle as well.

Hey @Luna Bliss, I was poking around on the r/DigitalNomad subreddit earlier and saw this resource link on the sidebar. I haven't yet researched any of the remote work visas mentioned on this page, but there are a LOT more of them than I realized. Might be useful for you, too (of course, check the official gov sites for details, but still...this isn't a bad starting point): https://wherecani.live/blog/view/best-remote-work-visa-countries/

Sooo, who has more fun expat stories to share? Peeking around, I found these fairly recent expat interviews that seem pretty interesting https://www.spendlifetraveling.com/category/ask-an-expat/

I'll take partial responsibility for some of that, but only because @Love Zhaoyingjust haaaaad to go and mention vampybois, hmpf. Btw, I LOVE this photo!

Since we started out talking about people leaving, if anybody coming in wants my spot, by all means, I'll trade. 😊

Go dress up and post a photo here, too! 😂 Oh wait, I DO have something kinda fancy. Okay, potential spicy vamp vibes coming later (or tomorrow, depending on how motivated I am). Edit: Oooo the lace ruffles and everythang! Get it! Ya gotta do a modern version!

Yaaaaaaaaas. You've got great taste! That's good inspiration for a photo, too. HMMMM. Who sells velvet in SL?

Underlined bolded and italicized for emphasis - you lost me right here. 😂

Visa overstays tend to be more common.

Oooo, I have never been to a vampire club. But velvet does make the occasional (or not so occasional - depending on the event) appearance in the club scene as well. Velvet, lace, brocade, silk, satin. These guys look like they spent ALL DAY getting dressed and they could give a good damn if anybody likes it! You're lucky to get a "thank you" instead of an "I know" when giving them a compliment. 😂

I love that level of confidence!

Ohhhhh, I so have. There are some fierce male fashionistas out there who don't give a dip what anyone has to say about what they're wearing. 😂 Also, not really in the fashionista category (well, maybe), but a lot of goth clubs are like this. Sometimes the men dress better than the women and I doubt it's solely for us because you can never drag their attention away from the mirrors posted around the club!

I totally understand why that would deter people from continuing to go there, yeah. Same with my uncle who used to travel quite frequently to Brazil. It just got too dangerous to keep going on a regular basis (he got most of his dental work done there, too). But seeing as how I'm living right smack in MS-13 territory, I guess I'm not overly fazed. 😂 I shouldn't laugh as there are several nearby cases of people getting caught in crossfire just sitting at traffic lights, but it's one of those "laugh to keep from crying" type of dealios. I know Mexico isn't guaranteed to be much safer, but I'm not really seriously considering that as an option anyway.

Also not Scylla and also vehemently disagree. Granted, my definition of sexy is wildly out in left field sometimes. I'm personally far more attracted to shattered gender norms than anything else - a man in a skirt or dress gets my attention FAR quicker than the shirtless, tight jeans, heavily muscled look that many tend to go for, and for everyone else, I'll go ga-ga over someone rocking a well-tailored suit before I'll drool over a skimpy bikini or somesuch, so I'm coming from an entirely different perspective here. But yeah no, the way I dress myself has absolutely nothing to do with trying to attract anyone. SL-wise, I love leather, I love latex, I love hardware, I love everything goth/industrial/punk. RL-wise, same. Ironically, I feel a lot sexier in a full suit (as long as it's not right smack in the middle of summer 😂), so it wouldn't even occur to me that I'd be turning heads in the skimpier stuff. Hell, I'd still be rocking it if men up and disappeared off the planet. It's just who I am and who I've always been.

Best is verrrrrrry subjective. There are so many different skin stores and styles out there. This is also going to vary quite heavily depending on what head you're purchasing a skin for. You can start by checking out some of the more popular stores, maybe? Check out The Skinnery, 7 Deadly Skins, Velour, DeeTaleZ, Glam Affair, Session, Not Found, Bold & Beauty, Ives Beauty, etc.

That's a very broad question. I have...I dunno, a few hundred skins maybe. What type of skin are you looking for? Human vs. Fantasy? What type of features are you interested in? How old do you want to be? What tones are you looking for? How much do you want to spend? On and on and on...

This isn't really super on-topic but I'll just point out - Big Pharma heavily, heavily lobbies our government and pumps quite a ton of cash (billions) into both parties. So this isn't really a Rep/Dem thing - it's a both thing. The only way to "fight" anything is to essentially unravel all that and get the money out of politics entirely. Neither party as a whole is interested in making much change on this front. A few individual politicians mention it here and there, but the others don't take them very seriously when the topic comes up. This is why you often get people just saying screw it and going abroad for their medical care. There isn't much we (meaning, the little people) can do at the moment.