Scylla Rhiadra

This is a lovely shot!

Love these, Kali! I'd especially love the second one if your figure were a bit better lit, but they are both gorgeous.

It's interesting to compare the mesh head market with that for women's mesh bodies. Izzie's has just completed a survey of their customers; the mesh head situation is much less fragmented. It's completely dominated by LeLutka. "From 951 respondents 76,8 % are wearing a LeLutka head in Evo X mode, followed by Catwa Original heads (5,5%), Genus and LeLutka Evo Classic (each 4%), Catwa HDPRO (2,4%) and LAQ (1,9%)." Part of the reason for this, I suppose, is that there is much less in the way of accessories that are specifically rigged for one head or another -- although EvoX has changed that to some degree by remapping the mesh. On the whole, the situation for mesh bodes seems to me much healthier, with a great deal more competition and choice. I don't want to see Maitreya less well-supported than it is -- I wear Maitreya most of the time. But I wouldn't mind seeing an even more balanced situation, with Maitreya falling a bit. Competition and choice are good. https://izzies.wordpress.com/2022/09/06/mesh-head-poll-results/

Your plane nearly killed me, speaking of survivable SL accidents.

Amateur

I'd ask the mods to delete every single forum post I've ever made.

Blaise, I do wish you'd stop saying this. SL has many people who are on fixed incomes, are having difficulties making ends meet, and so forth. That's going to become even more pronounced over the next little while, as people battle inflation, job action, and other disruptions of the economy. There are a great many reasons why someone might not choose to drop money on a mesh body. It's surely not necessary to stigmatize them as "too cheap"? Do we really need to reinforce this kind of classist distinction?

It's gone. Tommy announced it on Forum Feedback a few days ago?

Nah, you're good. You just need to join us here again. 🙂 Welcome back! It sounds as though it's been an awful time for you, but we're delighted to see that you're still with us. Keep it that way, please?

Clara Sorrenti, the trans rights activist and Twitch streamer, was doxxed in the London, Ontario hotel room to which she'd fled after being swatted by members of the online harassment site Kiwi Farms when someone was able to identify the pattern of the sheets on the bed behind her in a picture. She then fled to Ireland -- and started finding threatening notes at her doorstep there less than a week later. Some of those doxxing Sorrenti are "hackers," but not I think "professionals." The point, I think, is that anyone with sufficient motivation, time, and patience can likely find out all sorts of stuff about us from the most innocuous clues. In the case of SL, I wouldn't worry overmuch about information being hacked, as I would about the many, many small hints about our identity that most of us leave littered about our SL.

Yes, fair. Ultimately, the OP is important only insofar as it has sparked a conversation about sociability in SL. What Randall or you or I think personally isn't nearly as important or interesting as the larger picture that has emerged from everyone's contributions. I've found it pretty interesting! I love how discussions like this can assist sometimes rather vague intuitions cohere into something more meaningful. And btw, I'm only faking the peripheral vision thing, so that you drop your guard. And you can't "prove" otherwise!

I'm sorry if any part of this thread has become somewhat derailed because of my suggestion that the OP was not employing humour. It was made in response to the suggestion that he was being "ironic," and it's an important point because our read of the intent of the OP determines how we respond to it. I'm not seeing any irony or humour, nor would I expect to see much of that from the poster in question, but if you can find hilarity in his OP and his subsequent posts, then enjoy enjoy! For me, the main takeaway of this thread is that, generally, you experience the kind of SL that you yourself construct through your own interactions with it. If you're socially very gregarious (and, in a general way, I am, I suppose), you'll find SL mostly to be a really welcoming social environment, with lots of people who want to interact with you. If you are less interested in social engagement -- which is of course also fine -- then there are lots of ways to ensure that that is the kind of SL you are immersed in. What I do find rather ironic (unintentionally so) is the argument that SL is a terrible place because the people are unfriendly, when made by someone who admits to ignoring IMs from others. Although that too is an instance of what I've just said: if your own behaviour is actually antisocial and maybe a bit unpleasant . . . well, surprise! That's the kind of SL you too will experience. All of this is a strength of SL. The power to engage socially, or not if one chooses not to, and still find it a fulfilling and worthwhile experience is one of the things that makes this platform a success, I think. Your SL, and mine, are mirrors reflecting the diversity of the approaches that we each bring individually to it.

It's an indication of how much nicer you are than I am that you gave Mr. "Can I Pay You for Sex" a chance to redeem himself -- which it sounds as though he did, at least a bit? My clubs sound a bit like your beaches. Tonight, I went, as I almost always do, on my usual Sunday night club date at The Mercury Room, which Maddy mentioned above. She was there too tonight, as she often is (although not, tonight, in scuba gear). It's a lovely club, there's wonderful vintage jazz, and the people are lovely and welcoming. Tonight I was IMed by two women I'd never spoken to before -- one someone I've seen there before, but never interacted with, and the other a newcomer to the club. I don't know that I made two new friends, but it was just . . . nice. I like people. Maddy was surprisingly unembarrassing tonight too! She danced for the first time with a friend of mine she doesn't know terribly well, and, from what she said afterwards, had a lovely conversation with him (as I'd expect: he's a lovely man). Oh, and I looked adorable tonight. (Ask Maddy!) 😎 So, yeah, a success! And mostly because of people. ETA: Forgot to mention that, after clubbing, Maddy talked in IM for a half an hour with my date about plumbing. No, seriously. She did.

You didn't have to deal with the cleaning staff afterwards.

It's really rather lovely, Ceka, that this seems like it's news to you! I think this is a case (and we see it a lot here) of people judging SL as a whole from their own narrow experience or values. There are, for instance, five clubs that I have gone to fairly regularly over the past few years -- in some cases, weekly -- in SL. In none of them would someone be snubbed or criticized because they were wearing a system avatar -- or were a furry, or whatever. I'm sure there are individuals at those places that might not respond favourably to an IM from someone who wasn't meshed up with the latest, but the communities themselves are really inviting and inclusive and welcoming. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend any of them to a noob still using a system avi. It seems odd to me that people who knowingly go places where that does matter -- where some segments of the SL resident population are unwelcome -- would express surprise that they find people there . . . unwelcoming.

Now, the funny thing is, this hasn't been at all my experience in SL. Personally, when I message or hail someone in SL, I'd say I have at least an 80% success rate in getting a response. If it's someone I know from the forums, or Flickr, or elsewhere, it's probably close to 99% success. And the funny thing is . . . that 1% who didn't respond? Well, ironically, Randall, that would mostly be . . . you. I know I've mentioned it before, and it's probably pretty boring now and all, but you keep coming back to post about rude and unresponsive other SL residents are, so I feel sort of compelled to remind you that on at least 2, and I think actually probably 3 occasions, I've tried to chat with you in IM or local chat in-world. Not recently -- I'm not a glutton for punishment, so I've stopped doing it when I've seen you at Fogbound or wherever. But it is rather funny and ironic, isn't it? Now, I don't want you to think that being ignored by you on these occasions has left me in tears or anything. It's fine! You're allowed to ignore, or block me! It's your prerogative totally. But it does occur to me that there just might be a connection, cause and effect, perhaps, between how you seem to treat people in-world (as I've noted from my own experience, and from what you've recounted in your OP), and how you get treated? Just a thought? So, because I want to redeem your lost faith in SL humanity, I'm going to make an offer! IM me in-world, and I'll say hi back! And be pleasant and everything. It's an offer that is open to anyone on this forum, but I especially want to offer it to you! Sometimes the problem with misanthropy is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, maybe?

Lol No, I get that. There are two or three DJs in SL I somewhat follow who are very knowledgeable, and from whom I have picked up now favourite songs and bands. I wasn't really dismissing the music, but rather suggesting that there are other sources for that (I have found some wonderful playlists on Spotify, for instance), whereas the people are, literally, unique. I also get that there are people who are not as gregarious as me, and I know there are some who go to clubs just to listen to music. That was not the context of the OP, however, to which I was responding. YMMV, however, certainly.

I've known Randall for a very long time. I'm not sure I've ever seen him crack a smile, yet alone a joke.

When one thinks about it, clubbing in SL is really a remarkably artificial and even, one might argue, pointless exercise. There we all are, pretending to be moving to music we'd be able to hear better through an online streaming service or YouTube, in an environment that most often looks either like a beer-sodden dive of the sort we'd never go into in RL, or the basement of student frat house. And it's all code. It's all an illusion, it's all pretense . . . except for two things. The music, and the people. And the music we can hear better elsewhere. The people, on the other hand, are irreplaceable and unique. I like "dancing" in SL -- I have nice animations, and I enjoying watching my reasonably attractive and stylishly-dressed avatar "moving" to the music. And I often enjoy the music. But it's the people I go for, because I've established very real and often quite deep friendships at these places, and built for myself a place in the lovely, warm, caring communities that the better clubs foster. Remove those, and all you really have left at such places is . . . code.

Abraham, have you tried contacting Virtual Ability in Second Life? https://virtualability.org/second-life-disability-resources/

Then consider this. How much terror might women have visited upon the world --- had they so chosen?

What is this in Ordinary Person speak?

Fair point, Ceka.

I think this is certainly an improvement over what was there before! I only had to wait a few seconds for the video to start playing. On the whole, it was pretty good, although there were a few clips I'd have skipped. The slow shot of the woman and the butterflies was gorgeous. A few quick observations: Are there particular communities here that might be very popular incentives to join, and weren't featured very recognizably if at all? SciFi? Fantasy? Furries? Is the whole video maybe too slow? It's almost as though it is simulating lag, in a few places. In others, the slowness is good, and seems contemplative. How much of this is likely to scream uncanny valley to people not used to SL graphics? This gives the impression of VR -- it's all first-person (mouse) view. I can get SL looking REALLY lovely -- for photographs and things -- on a really old desktop. But that's in particular circumstances. There's no way that most people are going to be able to enjoy this kind of ultra graphics in places with more than a few people. It's not actually very representative of how SL looks to most of us, most of the time. I did, generally, like the categories included below, but thought that the accompanying pics might have been more representative of these.

/me considers very carefully the possible ramifications of reporting a post by a mod as "off topic" . . . 🙄