ValKalAstra
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Posts posted by ValKalAstra
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Yah. I do get that accidents can happen but lately I've seen it happen so often, I wonder whether some stores are running themselves a bit too thin with too many events. Maybe or maybe not related:
My own lack of deductional skill to figure out just what is on sale sometimes. Alright, it's a picture of a girl in a dress, wearing glasses that are out of focus, earrings, showing the lipstick prominently, in an interesting pose and it's called some fancy artful name. Okay. So... what are you selling?
Like at some point I start this puzzle game of, okay I know this store usually sells poses so it's probably not the pretty dress. However the pose is just barely in focus and clips, surely that would not happen with the pose as the primary sale item? Maybe the fancy earrings, could be some sort of prop type of deal. Do they have a demo, of course not. So it's probably the skin. Or the pose. What's the sales board called, maybe the title gives it away? And it's "object" by creator xyz. Aye. Have a nice day, sorry. I am not smart enough.
(it was the glasses - I saw them weeks later in their mainstore on a mannequin).
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14 minutes ago, JUSTUS Palianta said:
It really sucks how reddit doesn't let you read anything without joining any more, i used to read it all the time & now i don't.
Just saying, you can dodge the horrible UI redesign (and thus the idiotic must be logged in pest) by using old.reddit.com. Just add "old." in front of the reddit address.
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3 hours ago, Bree Giffen said:
I was thinking about making a shop to support whaling. It'd have the usual sailor clothing and rubber boots but also specific items needed for hunting whales such as flensing knives, blubber boiler kettles, harpoons, etc.
Isn't that what the whole gacha thing was about? Ohhhh, right, different kind of whale hunting.
Me, personally, would make a shop to sell virtual bubble wrap sheets. You would attach them like a hud and pop the bubbles with a satisfying sound. I would allow folks to share (transfer) the bubble wrap sheet of course, so you and a friend can pop bubbles together!
Oh yeah and you could link it with friends so all of them can hear the pop without annoying anyone else.
And I'd sell it at 25L$ a sheet.
Hm. Actually...
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11 hours ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:
That's only because men are too stupid to recognize that 1) freeze drying is far more nutritionally sound and doesn't damage the taste of the food, and 2) CANS ARE HARD TO OPEN.
I think the dragons have got it all figured out. Once they setup the pretty princess protection service, their food is served in self-delivery cans. Just remove the *****ly parts and roast as desired.
Done, one freshly barbecued knight.
/edit: Oh for BLEEP sake just how BLEEP many BLEEP innocent words are BLEEP censored by now. Okay let me grab my thesaurus and see what else would fit.
And Nina is back with this bit of wisdom: Thesaurus recommends: complicated, knotty, nettlesome, ticklish, tricky as synonyms. Ticklish? Theoretically, all the swords and pike might tickle a dragon? Okay, ticklish.
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More or less, @PheebyKatz gave you the gist of it. Us photographers are usually a bit weird but overall friendly bunch. If you're looking to learn, there are a great many resources for that. A good first start is YouTube, if you're the type that learns well with Videos. I know I don't - but the resources are out there. I'll recommend two groups to you as well.
The first is FOCUS: secondlife:///app/group/163f6c9c-7a1a-d3ea-e144-bc6ccfab61c6/about (if the forums don't link this properly, just copy/paste into your SL adress bar)
This is in my opinion THE place to go to for professional connections and also to just stay connected. You'll probably find most of the popular names in it. They run the FOCUS magazine as well as the photography fair event and galleries. If memory serves they often do teaching events too, so if your timezone allows, do check them out. https://artfocused.com/
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The other group is Naturally Naughty 2.0: secondlife:///app/group/203e4ae4-42ee-f66c-1b6b-3e4e35baee44/about
If you don't mind occasionally seeing nudity and sexual content, this is a lovely and very welcoming place for photographers of all skill levels. They've also got a sim full of wonderful backdrops for you to use. Very active, very friendly. I'd say join, even if you do mind NSFW content - in which case just skip the posted images. Folks will still be welcoming and helpful.
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Last but not least, just as PheebyKatz mentioned, you may want to find artists with a style you want to develop yourself. There are many different ways you can go about taking a picture. Say, some are adherents to the church of the raw shot - everything done must be SL only. Others are really intricate in building their own sets and working on dramatic artful lighting. Yet others love adding an element of editing, taking the pictures and turning them into something else entirely. Me, I wouldn't go as far as call myself experienced, but my joy is in finding technical solutions that are just a wee bit nutty.
How nutty?
This nutty.
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6 minutes ago, sandi Mexicola said:
no, no, that's really me! lol
Or my broken english
Sorry, I meant seams (probably).
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Yah, this is a thorny subject for sure. A while back I decided I'd rather ride the wave than be crushed by it and took the time to familiarize myself with AI image generation. This has given me a perspective that I personally consider more healthy for my frame of reference. First I think there's a notable difference between snapshot AI art and deliberate AI art. Let me explain the difference to me:
- Snapshot AI Art is basically just feeding a prompt to midjourney and getting back a fancy image. You might reroll a few times but that's it.
- Deliberate AI Art is using something like Stable Diffusion, training LORAs, feeding it a basic prompt, inpainting aspects, adjusting CFG values, clipskip, samplers, controlling poses and lighting with Controlnets, learning additional extensions for specialised purposes - it very quickly gets very elaborate.
At that point I felt reminded of a debate I had seen a few times in my life, that of what real art is and isn't and how some new technology will always kill it. I've seen it with image editing, I've seen it with digital cameras. I've seen it with mobile cameras and easy filters (which by the way, machine learned!). It's a scary new technology, there is a lot of FUD floating around about it but at the end of a day it's a tool that will change how we approach media yet again.
There's already an interesting cultural change happening now in that the typical midjourney style is rather notable, as is the generic AI Girl Face. If you follow the AI communities closely, you'll see them find even more issues, such as repeating patterns, perspective troubles or shadows that are wrong, clothing lines that make no sense, even buttons that are off. While yes, it's very easy to create something pleasing, people are quickly adapting to it.
As are professional artists - there are more and more works generated in a blend between traditional art and generative art together. Ultimately, tastes will change because of this but I've got no doubt that talented people will create much better works than someone just putting in prompts. Then, as for selling things in Second Life - honestly, the only thing I mind about that is the marketplace becoming even less usable as generative spam will drown it out. Perhaps that will light a fire under LLs bum to get that fixed? A girl can dream!
As for myself, I'll probably chuckle about people selling their quick AI prompt image but if it looks like actual work went into it - I really don't mind, as the additional work and effort put into it is precisely the human element detractors claim is missing. Right now I also find it easy to tell whether something was just a prompt or actual effort. That might change, sure - but culture changes constantly.
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Ooh - those updates sound lovely. The ability to save eye-looks? Yes please! I'm always scared to make changes to them for fear of never quite getting them right again. It's an irrational fear as I know which options to use but this would make me much more likely to experiment with different styles.
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So this song gave me a bit of a nerd girl moment. I was halfway through listening to the song premiere when I suddenly sat up straight. Wait a second. RONDRA? THE WAR GODDESS RONDRA? WAIT. IS THIS A DARK EYE FANSONG? WAIT, FINSTERWACHT? OF COURSE! OH MY *SQUEEEE* IT IS!
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Gosh this song is just the best collision of things that should not work but somehow do. So, this is a cover song. The original song was a blend of scream metal with scooter hardstyle techno music, set to a backdrop of the worst of the 90s style clichés. Then along comes this cover version, which adds an additional element by turning it into a german folkrock song and it somehow works. It just works. It's so stupid and I love it.
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Does the world need more Nina Stickers? For sure! New LayerDiffusion is actually pretty neat. Having near on perfect transparency on generation is a big deal.
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https://www.flickr.com/photos/191119559@N02/53560834476/in/dateposted-public/
Technically, that's my avatar and that's how I looked today. The cat. I mean. That counts, right?
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Pet Peeve:
When daring to point out a bad symbol in someone's tattoo, (all i said was that it was an unfortunate tattoo), gets you dogpiled in hateful instant messages (to clarify, not by the one with the picture) and reprimanded by group moderators to say only nice things or nothing at all.
I guess that's one less photography group to participate in.
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2 minutes ago, BilliJo Aldrin said:
Of course I could imagine even a topic as mundane as growing and preserving your own food could become a flame war between the canning camp vs the freeze dried camp.
I mean - that's more or less what happened.
Any topic was just one step away from turning into something gender and then things went flying fast.
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I don't think we will ever get an off topic section again. Mostly because LindenLab was a lot more lenient about these things not too long ago and what they got as thank you was a lot of angry in-fighting, flamewars, name calling and just an overall political sludgefest. They rigorously shut that down and in the process, shut everything not strictly related to SL down as well. I can say, the Forum has gotten a lot more peaceful since - but it also has gotten a lot more chilling.
However to a company, peace and quiet is worth more than ugly mud fights over super charged US politics. They could give us an off topic forum but that would mean inviting all of that back in and needing to moderate things more actively again - yah I don't think that will happen. It's just easier for them to occasionally boop folks if they get too off topic.
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Second Life is an interesting beast in ways. I like to style myself as a social butterfly, I don't usually struggle meeting people. That's true enough for Second Life too. Meeting someone isn't hard in Second Life but what's curiously difficult for me is to stay connected, to find a common ground.
Part of that is probably my nature of being a weirdo and virtual photographer, so I spend large amounts of time with my HUD off, looking at dx drawcalls and cryptic settings but more often than not, something just does not click in a way like I am used to in other virtual worlds. There's something to the fabric of social interactions in Second Life that is different from what I am used to. Am I owed any friendship, hell no. It's just that none of the social trappings I have learned in RL do work for me in SL and as a result, I find myself with next to no contacts in SL.
Most of my time is spend alone or with very fleeting interactions. It's not for lack of trying either, I have reached out to various people, tried to engage with their art, talk about mutual passions and I guess folks just lost interest quickly. I'm not bitter or angry about that, it's cool, I am just saying that even outgoing people like me might run into trouble making connections in SL.
So with that, I can relate with the feeling of having no friends in SL.
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Doing some more experiments. For some stubborn reason only my broken mind can fathom, I decided to go the insane route. Make a character lora - then use SD to generate my SL character. Both the pictures are 100% entirely AI and yet could be mistaken for some touched up SL Flickr Shots, I feel.
Also heeeellooooooo uncanny valley!
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A folkmetal cover of a german Reggaeton song, with a guest appearance by swiss singer Melissa Bonny about... I guess flirting rituals in a "club". Pretty tongue in cheek overall. Also superb make up and outfits. Do want.
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Took a bit of a time out from the Forums. Either way, sometimes you just need a hand.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/191119559@N02/53504393010/in/dateposted-public/
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Alright, so with a bit of time, I decided to do a cheap and cheesy sunday morning study. Mostly to check my own biases but also out of curiosity, I went to a website for drawn images of certain acts and looked up the frequency of these topic related tags.
Okay, maybe it's those anime people being anime people (no judgement). Let's do a similar search on a website for videos of real people doing funny things. Had to censor out some things because the forum can be a bit overly triggerhappy on certain terms.
Well, that's interesting to me. Obviously this doesn't meet any scientific rigor, I didn't factor in filter bubbles, alternative terms, etc but it does indicate that there might be a gender lopside within the kink - but that lopside might be in a surprising direction. This brings me back to your question here:
1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:If, on the other hand, Person X is clothed because he is a male, and Person Y unclothed because she is a female, then that's a rather different situation, isn't it? And if you have a club that is specifically designed for clothed (and dominant) males, and unclothed (and submissive) females, then you in effect have a misogynist club, where women are submissive (and naked), not merely because they like that, but because they are women.
I do the impolite thing and reply with a question: Why are the women there? I'm serious. Especially in the framing of Second Life where there exists something even more powerful than a safeword: The ancient rites of Alt+F4. Why? In any BDSM interaction, the power lies with the submissive. Hands down. No exception. Any deviation from that isn't BDSM, it's a felony.
In your example, the men are dressed, because that is the specific kink and the women are undressed, because that is the specific kink. It's a kink both sides consent in and choose to engage in. Okay you want to argue that it is misogyny in which case I want to point out: Andrea Dworkin that way waits, with her ideas about coercion and I am not sure that's a discourse worth going into.
Imagine then a counter example. A male avatar decides to go into a lesbian club and attempts to have heternormative adult interactions there - and then claims misandry when he gets tossed out. Is it? Hell no. It's sexual preference. And I have seen that happen. Many times and I've heard it happen in gay clubs too that women go there on a mission and throw around loaded terms when they get ejected.
So, to finally answer your question:
1 hour ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:Here's a thought experiment. What would happen at said club if a fully clothed woman showed up with a naked man? Would they be welcomed? Would the club exhibit a tolerance of D/s, where it clashes with the configuration that they have imposed upon it?
I very much doubt it.
If the club is explicitly about CMNF - you'd get tossed out. If the club is about BDSM in general, you'd be welcomed and mind you, you'd be the bloody star of the show (when I found myself more comfy with myself going from a sub to being a domme, I started being overwhelmed with attention from submissive men). If the club is about CFNM, it would be your turf and if someone were to show up with CMNF there, they'd get tossed out too. Just like heteronormative gets thrown out of a homosexual club if they push the envelope. Just like you'd get thrown out of a dance club with a ball dress code, if you show up in lingerie. Just like you'd get thrown out of sailing yacht club, if your ship is a battlecruiser. With lasers and hello kittie stickers.
Seriously. It's preference. It's a BDSM interaction with a clear power structure. Remember, the submissive has at all times the power to safeword out of a situation. Yes that includes a situation such as the tagging you mentioned. Ideally, a dominant would veto or manage the tagging (because the dominant talked to and negotiated those limits beforehand. First line of defence). Any kind of tagging in irl is always, **always** bundled with explicit negotiations of safewords. In SL, some forget negotiating terms and safewords - yet even in that case, the ancient rites of Alt+F4 apply.
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I mean, not to start fires or anything but why judge what two consenting people are doing? Sexuality is endlessly complex and aspects of BDSM even moreso. Maybe to some it's a form of respect, for example the submissive may enjoy seeing their domme in a beautiful gown (or suit, or whatever!), toying with the idea of contrast. To me it's respectful to feel out what a submissive may desire and then work to fulfill those desires as good as I can.
Maybe to others it's a form of humiliation, of being made to be seen by strangers like that, while they submit to their domme. In which case it indicates the transfer of power in a visible way that goes beyond a collar or a ring of o or any other symbol. Or it's a completely different reason why they're doing this.
If they get enjoyment out of what they're doing and are both consenting (while obviously not breaking laws) why judge? Why the mockery and sneer and attribution of malice and lazy intent?
Reminds me of what my gender studies professor used to say. Loose translation of what she said: "We stormed the House of BDSM with such righteous fury and anger, we missed that half of us were already there".
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On the upside, the weather has finally caught up with the temperature in my heart.
Pet peeve: Getting caught in it without sunglasses because I'm an ascended form of jackass. Tried to squint and use my scarf as eye protection but it might not have been enough. Blegh.
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1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:
Peeve: I'm so old, I remember when software had printed manuals! (What's a Pee-dee-eff?)
I still remember the times when a request for help was met by the lovely "FAQ-U" - but maybe I just spent too much time on Quakenet back in the day.
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There was a time when I used to think that too. I found that constantly reading anger and hate had an adverse effect on me. It changed how I engaged with people, turned me bitter and hostile too. I'm a natural hot head with a temper and it got me into a looooot of arguments.
Well I got older and found myself a deeply ugly person for it. To this day, I still don't block most people even if some of them have me go "what the fudge is wrong with you?!". I try to engage with people but I have learned to block folks that are so hateful, their very presence poisons any discourse they touch beyond repair. Whatever they have to say, someone else quite likely can say it better.