Ayashe Ninetails

That's a good cue to ruuuuuuun. Those robes are very similar to the kind I like in RL (they're very Frederick's of Hollywood/Victoria's Secret) and I'm pretty short. No one's done that to me. In SL, I'm pretty tall and all that but still - I haven't known any men who did that here either, no matter what I had on (or what color). Some have tried to feminize some of my avatars a bit (on the piercings side), but rarely do they succeed on that one. 😄 Honest opinion - if you were wearing one of those outfits on adult land, I would think you were an adult. I'm going off memory here, just what I remember seeing of your avatar in some old thread somewhere. There's no way I'd associate that clothing with anything but (I peeked at their Flickr).

Yep it is! I find it a lot easier to work with in Black Dragon than Firestorm, though. Personal preference there.

EEP (formerly windlight) isn't too bad to learn at all. That's mostly just fiddling with sliders and things, and you could get some really cool sky effects with it. Nothing needs to be rezzed or set up in any specific way. I just have fun randomly messing with stuff until I get lighting and effects that work with my shot.

In today's climate with increased regulation and scrutiny and whatnot, the general perception would probably be just as bad. Back in the day, it wasn't as big of a deal. 2024 is a different beast. To get back to the OP, if anything, I'm interested to see which way SL swings in the near-ish future.

To clarify, I'm not talking about child avatars at all. By choose a lane, I mean either they go full 18+ like almost every other adult game out there and do their spicy thing, or they ditch adult content entirely and aim for a more general audience. Right now, the way it stands, it's a mix. Unless it's changed, the minimum age for SL is 16 (limited to General sims, I believe). 13-15 limited to approved educational G sims. Someone feel free to correct me if I have that wrong. I'm saying - either or. Having both while trying to expand to new platforms is rouuuuuugh.

Well, to be fair, it's difficult to separate the two. If a platform has adult content, it will often be kink-friendly to some degree. For sanity's sake, I'm not going to bring the child avatars thing into this thread. I'm only using this line to springboard off of. I actually think Second Life is at the point where it needs to choose a lane. I cannot think of another platform (maybe there is one, but I certainly haven't used it) that both promotes/welcomes a full range of adult activity while simultaneously trying to hide it for a more general audience (on mobile). It's usually either 18+ only or something fairly clean, maxing out at R-rated. Mixing both is bad ideas and extraordinarily difficult to moderate. Many game devs wouldn't even attempt such a thing. Modders can and do get in there and do some wild things on occasion, but that's not actually sponsored by the dev team. Look through Steam, just for a start. All of their adult games are 18+. Now of course, nothing is stopping anyone younger than that from getting in there (Steam's idea of age verification is inputting a birthday and calling it good), but the ratings are Mature/Adult 18+, so at least the devs can't say well, yeah we allow teens in there, but they have their own special areas! Yeah no. We'll see how that works out in the long run. The mobile news is pretty telling, though.

I thought you said you were looking forward to more TOS changes to make SL less of a cesspool? Your words, not mine. Realistically, it'll probably get more sanitized as time goes on. The more they try to expand to other platforms and demographics, the more likely that becomes.

https://play.google/developer-content-policy/ You can check there.

Oof, yeah, so then there's prims to worry about, too. I always try and leave some free for decorating my scenes, but there are numerous times where I maxed completely out. So if you still have to rez lights and stuff, nah, I'd never mess with it. I need backend things to just work without any input from me whatsoever. That's sort of the level I'm at these days. 🤣

Photography is all I do here now and I've cut down on some of that lately as I'm not shopping much anymore. Even with that, though, I have zero interest in PBR. Just not interested in having to manually make it work myself (unless that's no longer necessary - I haven't been keeping up with it). If anything, it'd make me log in even less. Just sounds like a hassle.

Somewhere between negative and don't care. Some of it might impact performance unless there are plans to ensure it doesn't. I can't see it being implemented well, though. Hence negative (for some users). Doesn't particularly matter in my case, as I'm a also a user of other modern platforms/games that run really well. Hence dun care.

I never actually looked. I absolutely cannot stand doing more than checking texts on a phone. The tiny screen annoys me to no end. Maybe that's got something to do with the type of content contained on those apps, though. Might be more tame. SL is a bit...yeah.

Nothing. None of the upcoming tech improvements and features are anything I haven't already been seeing/using for years elsewhere. Hey, you asked. 😄 I can't say I'm surprised in the slightest. Can you imagine someone whipping out their phone on the train or in the middle of class, teleporting to an adult club, and having all that going on? Though I'm sure they'll still find a way.

Oof. I do not get the music in the car thing at all. I did that one single time a long time ago - I had just gotten home from clubbing all night in NYC and it was like 6am or 7am and I was so exhausted from the train ride home, I couldn't get out of the car, so I just cranked the music and sat in the driveway until I got the energy to move, LOL. But this is an every single day thing with this guy. And another guy who loves standing around in his driveway all day, too - gets in the car, gets out, wanders the drive, talks on the phone. During the day. During the night. Like damn, y'all have houses...go IN THERE sometime! That isn't the worst of it though, unfortunately. Spring, summer, and fall around here is a nonstop party. There are at least 3-4 houses that have major massive outdoor parties ALL the time, sometimes every weekend (as in, the party tents get rented and I can hear DJs and drunk relatives on the mic doing karaoke all freakin' day), there's nonstop bachata, salsa, mariachi, hip hop, and dembow (ok this one I don't mind), parties go strong until sometimes 2am or later, then they move inside and might turn it down a little bit, and there are some who set off fireworks for absolutely no good reason. Any excuse at all for the fireworks. Graduation? Fireworks. Birthday? Fireworks! It's Wednesday? Fireworks! One dude even set some nearby bushes and trees on fire with his last year, so that was fun! 😩 I try not to peeve too hard about the music (and some of it's pretty decent, but it is loud enough sometimes to drown out the dubstep in my headphones omg), but the random fireworks get on my damn nerrrves, PEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVE!!!!!!!

Exactly. Forum ignore/block features are pretty obnoxious, generally. I only use them on social media sites where it actually works and yeets things out of the timeline completely. Also, once I've chosen to ignore (mentally or via block) someone anywhere, I never bother reading their posts again. Goodness knows I'm not flipping through my eleventy-thousand mile long block list on Twitter (mostly full of spam bots) to find one specific account to see what they're up to, and I'm not doing that anywhere else, either. I'm just not that curious. Peeve: If only that worked so easily in real life. 😩 Especially for that one dude who sits in his car and blasts music allll day and night loooong. *shakes fist*

Well, that's a helpful review. Peeve: Shopping for PC parts sucks.

You could be absolutely right here. That's a very fair observation! I'm unfamiliar with it as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if I'm misinterpreting the writer's intentions there. It could just be that I'm sensitive to certain sounds. I've heard other people complain about listening to people eat/chew too loud and how it bothers them (which doesn't really bother me much) - probably just that sort of thing. Now this - best phrase EVER, lol. Yep! I've been actively reducing my exposure to toxicity lately (usually in the form of blocking half of Twitter - that's oddly soothing). And yeah, I love yoga and need to start doing it again, for sure. That would totally help. Thank you for that! Okay @Scylla Rhiadra, I'm done now and I apologize for the brief derail there. Back on topic, I do want to say you've done a fantastic job of explaining the ideas and theories in that article. I do believe due to the way it's written, that was easily missed. By me. It was me. I missed that. 😂

Lol, oh no I meant the phrase itself seems a little immature to me. At least when placed in an academic article. It stood out in a big way. Something about the whispering, I think. Ugh, gives me the chills and NOT in a good way, lol. I mostly didn't like the fact that the writer associated people who like cozy games with people who like that sort of thing, and I'll tell ya right now - for me, ASMR is anything BUT cozy! Second Life is cozy. Stardew Valley is cozy. ASMR is nails on a chalkboard for me. I do find it funny that that tiny phrase was enough to make me stop reading the article, though. I think I'm getting grumpier every year. 😄

Reworlding bothers me less. 😄 There are just some words and phrases that really grind my gears. Don't know why. I guess it comes across as a bit immature, maybe? I don't know. Maybe it reminds me of Reddit slang or something. Yeah, I agree! I sort of understand what they were going for there, but I think there are much nicer ways to make that point in the article without all that. Besides, I looooove my cozy games and HATE ASMR. Maybe I just felt attacked. 😂

I just don't understand why the article had such a hostile tone to begin with. I know I'm harping on that point, but I'm still trying to figure out why cozy gamers caught strays in that piece. Was that really necessary? Though thankfully, the article that was linked to that point was a FAR more pleasant read about the state of that market. Wait hang on, it could be a sentence structure thing here. The more I read it, the more I think they're using "ASMR-pilled" as a verb. Clumsy choice, but I still hate that phrase either way. Using "pilled" is about as effective as using a few other choice words that automatically make me ignore what someone has to say. 👀 Yes, I'm petty.

Demos are kind of tough to find for jewelry sometimes. PKC has demos. Maybe a few other stores. For the style you're looking for, you can also try Mandala, Earthstones, and Lagyo. I'd shop in-world, though. The marketplace doesn't always offer the full inventory.

I wouldn't worry about this at all. I have frequently worn Maitreya + V-Tech to create very adult male bodies (with muscle definition even). I've also used that same combination to make adult women and avatars in between. It's absolutely possible and not at all difficult to do. You mostly need to focus on the overall size and shape, work your sliders, and choose your skins wisely.

Can vouch. Most active MMOs have guilds and communities like that. Guild Wars 2 comes to mind right off the bat, but that's because I was in one there. Across the board, my MMO experience has been really, really positive. Despite the horror stories you hear about the toxicity (*cough WoW cough*), there are always really awesome people who just want to chill and play the dang game and do their best to keep their community spaces friendly and open to all. Just liiiiiike Second Life! \o/

Also ravers. If it's got blinking LED lights, I wouldn't even worry about it.

Oh absolutely! That's something I hadn't considered, but you're exactly right. I know enough about the cyberpunk genre to know you never let individuals or corporations have that kind of power. 👀 I mean, I'm the sort of person who can't even fathom letting too many smart devices into my life are you kidding with this magic tech stuff. 😄 Omg. Nightmare fuel, thanks, lol.