Ayashe Ninetails

Saaaaaaame! Even in pixel games, I'll sit there forever making my little pixelated face with no nose and two little squares for eyes. 😂 The Sims 4 + custom content, though? DAYS to get myself in-game, lol. And I agree - if customization/shopping and photography went away, that'd pretty much be the end of SL for me. Those are the only things I even do here anymore!

Avatar customization here is really good, but it also comes with a pretty steep learning curve that's completely non-standard and non-intuitive (buy my head and body in different stores? My head skin doesn't come with my body skin? Etc.). Other games that do it well often just have a single head/body on a single avatar that can be gripped, grabbed, twisted, molded, slid, yanked, and shaped into pretty much anything (see Dragon's Dogma II). And yeah, while there are absolutely a LOT of people who could easily spend 3+ hours in character creation, so many often hit Randomize a few times (another feature we don't have) and settle on something so they can get into the game and go. Here, you can get very stuck and very visually "broken," requiring some Googling, foruming, or searching for people in groups or Discord to help. I've seen a few people get to that point and log out in total frustration. Short version - our customization takes a lot of patience and practice. Completely ideal for people who love that sort of thing, but terrible if you just want to log in and focus on something else entirely. Senra's designed to help with that but...yeah. Edit: Oops, I believe we do have a randomize feature, but only for new residents making their Senra in the web customizer.

Bodies with male and female neck fits - CZ Slim and Anatomy. Just to note, if your head is unisex and has two versions (one female neck, one male), you can wear your male fit on any male body and your female fit on any female body. If your ideal head is not unisex, then yeah, a body with both neck fits works well. Anatomy's clothing can go very, very feminine. Unisex looks are also available, but the body seems to have landed very much in the feminine presenting arena, including lingerie. There are some basic and niche/alternative male clothing options for it, too, but the wardrobe is nowhere near the standard male bodies. Still, it's gorrrrrgeous and extremely flexible on the sliders. It also has a "soft" version for more feminine looks and a muscled version if you're having a Kario moment. CZ Slim has more male presenting clothing available and far more weekend sale stuff. It's mostly designed as a slender/thin option for guys. I haven't seen much in the way of female shoes, for example. It also has no alpha HUD, so you'll need to use layers, which is kind of a pain. I cross-dress way too much not to have an alpha HUD. Legacy and Jake have quite a lot of options, both in the masculine and feminine arena. Jake needs third-party support to wear heels, so that greatly limits shoe options as not many stores support those mods. Legacy has a high heel foot included in their newest update and some stores do fit their shoes and heels for it. Both do have a bit of muscle definition that can't really be softened toooo much, but with the right skins, it's not so bad. Maitreya, Female Legacy, and Reborn have flat options, though Maitreya 5.3 is probably the best at squeezing into male-fit clothing (lately, I've had luck with Gianni and Legacy fits, and Jake, if the butt isn't ridiculous, lol). There are also stores that carry more tomboy clothes for it - like Red Girl.

Gawd, that's so ridiculously cute, but the hair is sending me. 😂

There's a very wide range. Some anime avatars are quite adult. Take a peek at this Flickr group for anime avatars. It's listed as a non-adult group, however, I cannot guarantee it's 100% safe for work/G/PG-rated. Just take care if that matters to you.

I don't know. Profiles and partner status don't change as you swap avatars and it doesn't affect me enough to check the TOS for it. Thank you! Yeah, that's very unfortunate. Being cautious with chat is really the only way to prevent things like that from happening.

Not to speculate too deeply as I don't know the full situation, but it sounded as if Madi was saying they were indeed doing that together (it was Madi, right?). Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. To @brodiac90's point, I do agree there should be some separation there. If a couple both likes roleplaying as children, then keeping their convos G/PG while in their child avatars should be totally fine. When one is in an adult avatar while the other is not, however, it seems risky to engage in adult conversations. In your own dang house in real life, whatever. Online, though - risky. No, I do not agree with whatever proactive moderation is or IM surveillance or anything like that, but we do know chats are logged (which I'm also not a fan of - don't worry, I'm with you on all of this). Just to keep things on the level and for the couple's safety, though, romantic separation during roleplay is a good idea. When both are wearing adult avatars, then do whateva. That said, if they were reported for partner status or something, that seems more of a case of mind ya business, but we know how that works out.

There's been some anime discussion over in the spinoff discussion thread about the child vs. adult photo thread. Hopefully some do chime in here, though.

I laughed so hard at this. It is rather legendary, isn't it? What you may not know is we also had a large portion of the population many years ago who found it absolutely hilarious to create female Night Elves, strip off their clothes (don't worry, they had modesty layers!), and yeet them off the tallest tree in their starting area, leaving piles and piles of dead bodies around for the newbies to log into. Real wholesome content. Absolute same and I agree. Every single thing I can do in Second Life is better done elsewhere (for efficiency's sake, if nothing else). In my case, the only thing SL does better than everything else on the market is virtual photography. Combined with our avatar customization, there's really nothing like it. Unfortunately, the number of people who are going to come to Second Life just to create avatars and photograph them is low. If SL were to rid itself of adult content entirely (which we know is impossible as nowhere's been able to do that), it would need to get itself up to date and start competing with everything else on the market on the gaming side, combat, roleplay, life simulation, building/design, social/group features, or virtual events. It'll need another hook to replace it, and good luck with that.

It might be helpful to think of nonbinary as an umbrella term. There are very different ways a person could be nonbinary, so color preferences are going to be all over the map. I'm simple. Just give me purple stuffs, cuz that's my favorite color and I don't personally associate any colors with any genders anyway. Also, pink and blue are only good when blended together in dreamy beachy pastel color stories, thank you for coming to my design TED talk. 😄

Lol. I've been working on something like her for a long time. The idea originally started as "eccentric old woman who lives in the woods and is rumored to be a witch," but given how close she looks already, I just may give in and turn her a lovely shade of green. 😂

Not if we ask - do poseballs need modesty layers?

I admit, I had to Google. My familiarity with Japanese rock ended with Malice Mizer soooo long ago. I'm still quite fond of visual kei fashion, though. You nailed the look! I can totally see it.

I'm not going there at allllll. Not touching it. Newp newp! Ya can't make me. I will clarify, though. I don't see a whole lot wrong with the general "modesty" approach for very obvious human child avatars. Most games have been doing that for absolute ages - even for adults (which I don't always agree with when the game's rating and content are suitable and appropriate for an older adult audience, but whatever). I'm not going to complain about something like that. Better battles to fight, IMO.

There you go - post a Dinkie in the photo thread and let's find out! I'm pretty sure most consider them safe, though.

I have no words about the pink vs. blue argument. Bras on infants and toddlers are very bad and I hope creators are able to work with LL on a reasonable solution to that. Enforcing gender roles and policing undergarments can be terribly damaging. I don't have the answers for this as it relates to the new policies and it's above my pay grade to brainstorm them, but these decisions feel rushed, IMO. I totally get the need for the overall changes, of course. No criticism from me on that part.

I hear you. I'm mostly the type of person who just blindly bounces from store to store (especially during weekend sales - clicking links from Seraphim) and very occasionally notices I may be standing on A-rated land. For anyone playing an under 18, or something really difficult to determine age with, that's something additional to think about now. 😩

Oh I used to buy her houses and room sets just for individual pieces and clutter, too! The outdoor sets are really, really pretty, as well. I'm trying to remember off the top of my head how good her drinking animations are. I used to take them out when decorating with the food/drinks because her stuff is very script-heavy. Her food looks GOOOOOOOD, though, and the rum, whisky, wine glasses, etc. look fantastic. I love making cute little bar carts and displays with them.

Oh the drinking animations need WORK, lol.

Quick off-topic - depending on the brand, you might be able to get a kit to convert that dog to something else. I'm using the Cerberus Canis on my fox avatar and there are kangaroo skins for the HP Deer head, just as an example. If you ever wanna toss the head over in a thread in Your Avatar, maybe we could find some cute kits for it (wow that sounds funny out of context). I'll be honest - if I had an anime avatar (which weirdly I do not ... yet?), I wouldn't take them to adult land after these new changes, just as a precaution. I think relying on both random people and LL to judge their age in the user's favor is bad ideas. I'd just feel more comfortable on G and M land, personally, where it's less likely to be an issue. Edit: Looks up. Hah! You look like your forum avatar. Very cute look! The eye makeup brings back memories of having black eyeshadow damn near baked into my skin after a long night out and having to spend way too much damn time scrubbing it off my eyelids, lol.

LOL. I have been peeving and whining and complaining so hard about AI art and how it's infested just about everything. I love using fantasy art as references when making my SL avatars, and I cannot tell you how much AI garbage there is in that arena. It's almost impossible to find real drawings, sketches, and traditional and digital paintings. Omggggggg, if I see another cat in a wizard's robe... Funny thing is I've been complaining to my brother about this very same thing because he's HUGE into AI-assisted design these days, and he eventually sent me some of what he's been creating over the last year to show me what's actually really possible with this stuff. Ya know, beyond all the stupid cat pirates. He's been using Midjourney to create things like textiles, fabrics, yarns, beading and dainty pearls, ceramics, wires. Fabric pouches decorated with beads filled with more beads and super fine yarns and threads - like something you'd pick up at an estate sale from an eccentric grandmother. Yarn skeins. Beaded African masks. Death masks. Afrofuturistic face and hair adornments. Long strings of twisted wires. Braided threads. Glazed ceramic and porcelain sculptures. Really wild stuff and it all looks like regular photography. Had he not told me it was AI, I'd think he was spending too much of his time at craft fairs! And I said to him dude...why haven't I ever seen stuff like this before???? WHY IS IT ALWAYS CATS IN ROBES? 😂 I've since determined he's the only one I'll allow to play with AI. Everyone else must quit and take their crappy pseudo-fantasy art with them, lol.

Oh gawd, please don't get me started on gendered stands and sits. LMAO. I use the same AO for my male and female avatars (the AO animations do lean pretty active and feminine), but I found a set of male AO stands that were little more than compulsive flexing and I was SO tempted to add some in. I was hunched over wheeze-laughing with tears in my eyes on the pose stand in the store. 😂 And I agree with the other advice given - BOM layers and PG sits are a good solution. I prefer to just go AFK in my own private parcel, though - with the security on.

Go peek at Edgeworth if you think that's mixed up. His 24 version has much lighter gray hair than the 35. Guess he's using Just for Men hair dye these days. 😂

Noses are very tricky for me as in some cases, they're just a lil cute > or < or ' lol.

Anime's tricky because you've got to look beyond the face for context, in many cases, just given how they're drawn. There are some instances, though, where very subtle changes are made to shading, facial expression, face shape, or hair color that can help age them. SL's a bit different as I'm not sure if anyone uses tricks like that in the form of BOM highlight/shadow and expressions with their anime heads to do it, but if not, then you go by the rest of the avatar (style of dress is a big clue, and AO/poses can help). Whipping out good ole Phoenix as an example.