Fauve Aeon

I think it is a great idea but I think you’d have to write up a very clear and direct info card about what it is (and isn’t) AND how to behave. 😉 I know there have been successful maid cafes, but I’ve never come across a host or hostess club yet.

Warning, happy feels ahead so anyone who wants to avoid someone in a decently good mood - you’ve been warned. 😉 I’m concentrating on a new art project (delving into the research and planing phase before I bust out the airbrush and also the goopy textural paints) and feeling quite good. My sweetie is working from home, logging in remotely to his meetings and it’s amusing to hear him using his ‘patient voice’ soooo much. We are taking the recommended isolating precautions but otherwise I’m not ‘worrying’ overmuch. One of my 2020 resolutions was to ‘worry less’ overall. Neither of us are statistically in any appreciably higher risk groups due to age, health conditions, or habits so once I did some research I was reassured that even if we catch the virus, the probability of it killing us is tiny. Very glad neither of us had any doctor visits needed or scheduled so avoiding places where sick people gather until the contagion passes will hopefully be easier. Groceries ordered for pickup or delivery works well to limit contact and I need to dig out my exercise mat, I miss the pool, sauna, jacuzzi and massage - and we will miss a few cocktail parties and performances that we had planned to attend (thankfully they have only been postponed) but otherwise yes, I’m good and not freaking out with worry for once and that’s quite something! I’m going to make steaks for dinner and buy some e-books tonight and do some SL redecorating in our Angel Manor palace apartment over the next 2 weeks, something I’d been putting it off.

Try Escapades and New Babbage, 2 places with very good, strong kid communities that I can personally recommend wholeheartedly. Network with some good kids there and you’ll find the right kinds of places you’ll like to go. I only RP as a SL kid part time with an alt in a specific RP based in New Babbage so my experiences as a ‘kid on the grid’ at large are purposely limited and specifically directed, so I’m not in SL to immersively act out or live out a second childhood experience per say so I plan OOC as my adult self, then the RP is written/happens. With that said, I just don’t go many places or wander around as an SL kid because I already know that there are a growing number of places that kid avatars do NOT belong, I have no wish to press or challenge that, and yes there are some people looking for activities that are against the TOS, some acted out with kid avatars - and yeah it’s squick as heck but there’s no need to highlight it either and get traumatized, just think things through and be careful. To keep clear of most all of it, you just have to pay close attention to the region ratings, associated groups and the covenants etc. Aside from a couple of questionable surface inquiries, I can honestly say I’ve had very little trouble with anyone acting inappropriate at all towards my kid alt and I’ve been in SL since 2008.

Words, thread, snark, opinion. my takeaway: post more well tagged cool SL pix of my own and don’t worry about LL marketing. m’kay...Yumyum.

You caught me. I’m guessing that the lack of added forum reactions is 1) because it’s 3rd party forum software and 2) so people will make a post with words and effort and all, though my temptation to just post an emoji at times is big. One forum I’m on has a very pretty daisy that has evolved to mean ‘f-u’, so who’s to say, really? Lots of people don’t speak emoji well anyway though and think the scorn laugh is ‘cool’ and I’d hate to deprive them of the ability with a wider selection. /s

I’m not disagreeing with the general impression that many people have of SL, deserved or no...but what you find in web and app searches is quite skewed by where you are logged in, what tracking and privacy settings you have enabled and other factors already mentioned. One would have to do several searches using a VPN and a fresh browser install with all the tracking features disabled to get a kind of ‘blank slate’ impression of a search that’s not skewed by anyone’s habits and preferences. My screenshot is of my searches while logged in to Google and a YouTube premium account.

No wonder I got several beach vacation posts unrelated to SL (just labeled ‘living my second life’) along with some shopping & landscape photos. 😉 I used the link and yep, I did get a few various furry pix mixed in with a whole lot of everything else but everything that popped up for me was G rated besides one account posting multiple photos of sexy furry stuff (without a #NSFW tag) but easy enough to just flag the posts and block that account. I think for those of us who get tired and fed up of just seeing SL pix we don’t relate to, posting more of what we DO want to see and using good hashtags is always a great idea. I think the #NSFW tag is underused, but the people who don’t feel they need to use it are usually ones I’ll avoid anyway so that’s its own kind of convenient marker.

‘Eki’ for short then? 益

Oops. Should have used Karen/Sharon, maybe? Still, ouch.

I like those neon letters! I’ll try to get in to check but in case I don’t make it today, could someone list the creator, pretty please? And don’t worry, I don’t want them for my Bellissaria home believe me, I know better. I don't mind playing nice for my neighbors in Suburbia. I’m wondering if this plot is a protest piece though? And if so, I’d like to hear the story...did anyone ask?

Sea legs

Free rent

A lot of what I see is athleisure, some BoHo stuff, ‘mom jeans’ style of pants and leggings with frumpy tops, baby girl stuff and then a specific kind of creepy slooty clubwear that is trying to be sexy but failing in a big way. A lot of the way that it’s all being styled really shows that the people styling it don’t remotely wear anything similar in their RL, and never have. Which always looks strange because the details are just wrong. I actually think that the people who wear some of the 70s nostalgia BoHo wear are kind of cute though.

This is how I feel too, there’s nothing ‘wrong’ at all with the current offerings and the fact that they suit who they suit. I know it makes people crabby and defensive to hear it but they just don’t suit everyone by a long shot. So wishing for something different or additional isn’t wrong either. RP is big in SL and so are several kinds of alternative communities, and it would be nice if SOME of the Linden Home offerings (and who they cater to) were changed up. I haven’t seen anything in Belli’s areas that isn’t easily achievable in my real life decor (other than coastal locations, which Irl are always desirable and hard to get for homeowners ) and what excites me most about SL is the NPIRL stuff anyway, so there’s really nothing wrong with me wanting my premium membership to be valid in that area just like someone else’s premium membership would be valid in their suburban dream. I’m in the middle of KonMari RL on the track to ‘less but better’, we will be renovating one house next year, and my partner and I are dividing our time between two cities right now currently as well and “dwell “is taking a backseat to “experience “even Irl for us so I really don’t have any desire to re-create some kind of middle class suburbia in SL either. It’s just not my thing. So for my own premium membership, yes I’m looking for, hoping for, something a little bit different than what’s being currently offered in Belli so far and that’s fine too. I gave it a good try with a Victorian, I’ve happily lived in several Victorians IRL... And it was just kind of boring and I found myself neglecting it, and it’s it’s sitting neglected right now. I’m about to give it up this weekend and give someone else the opportunity. Admittedly a lot of people stabbing that refresh button are people looking for a second, third or seventh home so it’s not really flying off the shelves like hotcakes for the new people. It’s mostly oldbies playing house several times over which is also fine. And if somebody wants to harp on their age and refer to themselves as a stodgy old person, far be it from me to correct them. They have made it very well known that they are very comfortable being who they are, right? Now who can argue with that?

SL avatars look like a Boomer's take on a millennial. Which as a Gen Xer is... kinda weird... As in... if your grandparents tried to dress your 20-something kids, and make them look like what they think the 'kids' all think is cool... they'd look like an SL avatar... - Everything is just slightly 'off' from what it seems like the young folks at work actually look like... Life as a Gen Xer is an exercise in being stuck in the middle between WTF and OMG, and SL is just an exaggeration of that... - December 21, 2019 - Pussycat Catnap like this, only applied to ‘playing house’ in Belli. As another Xer, it just seems odd, a little amusing and way too ‘Sri bsns’ for what it is. Even though the oldest Xers have raised a generation of kids to adulthood, many of us still find ourselves in the middle between boomers and millennials trying to explain one to the other. It’s weird and it’s kind of hilarious sometimes.

How many of those accounts are actual newbies though, and how many are alts to just get “another home “. Many people have 2 to 4, some people have up to seven that I know of. When I read the community chat of the Bellissaria group, the general tone is age 30+

The ones I’ve talked to want spending money, cooler places to go and hang out/meet up with friends and more fun games to play. They also like shopping and events to attend. Very few of them care about setting up house, or even a stable home base in second life, because that’s not really a thing that many of them care about yet in real life. Some of them have things like vehicle collections but they don’t mind just keeping them in their inventory and they don’t need a place to park them, just more places to drive/fly them and have fun. When they want to take pictures, they set up a scene at one of their friends places, take the photos, then tear it down and re-sell their transferable gacha items. IMO, some sort of a co-op that could be shared among members of a group might be something that a few of them would take to, set up and host friends. The few that I know who ‘have land’ are usually squatting on someone’s corner with a little bunker of some sort. I don’t see any of them signing up for premium with any of the land benefits (old or new) being something that is a driving force. The people that I see taking advantage of the premium are older typists and older avatars, or new avatars that have older typists. Of course there are exceptions as always...but just in general. Im also assuming any 12+year-old avatar is going to be driven by someone who is 30+ in real life because you assume that they were at least 18 when they signed up. The age of the older avatars is beginning to be an indication of the generation of the typist as a general rule. I think that’s going to change as people realize it and decide to make new avatars and start over a little bit more in second life, The cachet of having an older account or avatar is going to get trumped by the fact that you’re getting older as a person, something I’m already seeing a little bit but I think we’re really going to see more of it despite people being reluctant to leave an inventory behind. It’s kind of hard to keep up appearances and your quasi-role-play as a sweet young thing when people can do the math with our visible numbers. *grin* for some people that’s not gonna make any difference but for a lot of people it will. I don’t see that many people with avatars less than a year or 2 old in Belli yet.

I’m assuming she’d own all her land under the discounted Atlas program which has minimums so maybe not as many as we’d offhandedly think if it doesn’t add up to these sweet sweet big volume discounts. I’m not sure if it allows sub-sublets under alt names though, it’s really hard to get anyone to talk about that program with any openness. It’s a secret!

‘Belli’ is a big hit with the middle-aged and older SL crowd for sure as we can all see from the community groups and all the excitement and activity… but unfortunately it is deemed quite uncool by many residents younger than that so I hope it’s not the only effort LL has in their five year land plan.

Which is completely unimportant to some and only of some importance to others still and it’s ok to say so in an open discussion thread. I know kid avatars are a niche, and I don’t at all advocate anything for ‘kids only’ to be generally featured as part of the major SL advertising to the general public either. It’s exclusionary and limiting and a narrow use of advertising resources. So is the SL sex and adult content market. Commercialized pixel sex in a virtual world, which is what is being discussed, is also a niche interest, unlike RL breathing. Because any SL use is a niche interest in the general population. Anything done within said world, a still smaller niche. Period.

This is my opinion on the topic and I’m sure that there are many people who will disagree. People looking for the adult content do not seem to ever have trouble finding it. It’s something that they will seek out everywhere, even with no advertising. Individual businesses advertising even a little bit with this interest in the already well-established appropriate places where potential customers will see it, have great visibility to their target audience because the people who wish to find it are very determined and pardon the pun, take great joy in completely fleshing out their second life to the nth degree. And they’re free to do so. It’s not like adult content is some hidden sneaky thing that you have to try really hard to find in SL just because it is not on the street corner or in the advertising. Adult advertising reaches a very limited audience on the web as well, limiting the places that you can even put your advertisements, making your advertisements often not safe for work. Many sites will not allow anything past a PG rating in advertising, so they will reject all the advertising if any of it has adult content, which would further narrow, not broaden the platforms were where SL could be advertised. Adult content in the marketing forefront of an entire platform that has many other more broad interests that also do NOT in any way include adult content, and making that advertising inescapable, may deter many people, in business, education, and anyone without specialty adult interests, highlighting the inability to completely exclude adult content, something that many people already see as a growing problem. Not the fact that there is adult content, let’s be clear, but the fact that it is growing more difficult to completely exclude adult content if one wishes to. Ask anyone who has a child avatar how difficult it is and how constantly aware you have to be about your proximity to adult content in just moving about the grid. There are some places where it’s absolutely not appropriate And I think the Vanguard of the advertising for the entire platform is one of those places, not because it’s ‘adult’ per say but because it’s a niche interest that’s only catering to one section of the population and potential membership. It’s the same with anyone saying ‘ I think that (any other very specific content) needs to be thrust to the front more’. There’s really no need when it’s a specialty interest that people will absolutely seek out.

So...Trads, Vics and the new Log Homes are all pretty safe styles, Many variations and like-able choices in the mix for sure but not anything too far off the mark of middle to upper middle class suburban prefabs in those neighborhoods. The buzz and continued popularity and uniquely creative decor of houseboats is great, it doesn’t seem to show any sign of slowing down, and the quirky charm and informal spirit of the campers persists...all to the tune of many people keeping multiple premium accounts. There was some cookie-cutter neighborhood stamping, and it was noted… So I’m hoping that will be kept to a minimum in upcoming neighborhood development. It’s obvious that many premium members in the new developments are not SL newbies, and may not ‘outgrow’ their Linden homes this time, instead staying in the community that has developed around the new homes. Bellisseria is such a great success overall… but I still think something urban and commercial is missing. I can totally see a boardwalk of artists houseboats, with art sales and shows and art walks. There’s bound to be a way to do urban development on land the same way with small shops and storefronts in a similarly dense pattern, leading people to walk the streets, but keeping it far enough away from those who would wish to have their community area strictly residential.

Ooh, disagree. Sometimes the only way to get a non-bitter coffee drink and the basis of my beloved Flat White = ristretto shots. At home for everyday drinking though we just French Press a medium roast.

For me it has to do with the overall esthetic, ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’ cover a LOT especially in individual furniture pieces. For some people ‘rustic and nostalgic’ will be the same era as ‘mid-century modern’, for others it will be quite separate. I’m sure also for some, these homes will feel strongly of a more ‘vacation home’ type than for others. The rustic vacation lodge feel is not a good decor for me so it’s something I’ll avoid for myself in this home style in favor of something more streamlined. For someone else, it might be the perfect thing. I agree that it’s all down to individual taste, there’s no right or wrong, just as the Victorians in no way need ‘historical’ decor unless you just like it.