Scylla Rhiadra

Thank you so much!! Coming from you (and from Saravendi, above, too), that really means something: you have such gorgeous avatars! I had resisted going the Bento head route, for a variety of reasons, but this thread, and the others here, have finally convinced me that if I want to do really nice photos in SL (and I'm a while away from that yet, but trying!), it makes no sense not to have a high-quality mesh avi at the centre of them. (I mean, duh, right?) The process has been frustrating, but surprisingly fun too. And now I can probably justify buying more and nicer clothes, right? RIght? ?

Hah! This has very much been my experience! I left SL, mostly, in 2011, came back with an alt for about a year in 2013-2014, which at least introduced me to rigged mesh clothing, and then . . . well, I came back with my main about a month ago, I guess, with a system avatar wearing a skin and clothing that is now at least 8 years old. Yikes. I felt like I'd ridden into town on a horse and buggy, wearing petticoats and a bustle. Have you found the mesh learning curve difficult? I'm still struggling a bit, but it's becoming clearer. The people posting here have been amazingly generous with help and advice! ETA: Your 2007 avi, notwithstanding the system clothing, is adorable!!

Don't you know how really rude it is to ask a woman her age? (Honestly, I don't understand young people these days. O tempore O mores!)

Ok! I took the plunge. New Genus head, with Nataly toffee skin. (And HOURS of fiddling with the shape.) I think it looks ok!

Totally understood! I myself find it much easier and more convenient to wash up after tidying the house if I'm only wearing garters, panties, and a bra while doing it. Who wants to wash clothes if you don't have to, right?

But . . . but . . . Why are you so often naked in the first place????? ?

Don't be silly. He knows what he needs. HE NEEDS WOMAN BY HIS SIDE. (Or so he told me.)

OMG, I wish there were a button like that in RL. Soooooo useful.

I suspect your first statement is probably more accurate than your second. My guess is that someone like this doesn't HAVE any other "tactics." This is probably the only way that he knows to deal with women. (And some of that might be cultural too.)

So . . . should someone tell him that we're on to him??????

Actually, that's a really interesting insight. I need to give it more thought. That said, I've known men in RL who act similarly.

His English is fine . . . certainly adequate for this. I think rather than hurt feelings, this was about speeding up the production line. Why waste precious time on someone who evidently is not going to provide what you want (which is not interesting conversation)? Time to move on to the next.

Odd, isn't it? It's almost as though they don't really value us as, you know . . . people.

You can have mine, if you'd like it.

Hmmm. Pretty consistent with the nature of my conversation with him. I told him upfront that I wasn't interested in sex (neither, he said, was he), or in dating, but I'd be happy to be his friend. He was of course deeply disappointed . . . after all, I am (he told me twice!!!!) "perfect girl." He didn't block or defriend me -- in fact, he's still on my friends list. Maybe he's becoming more impatient and less tolerant? It must be exhausting working his way through all of those women!

Ewwwwwwwwwww Jesus, Kanry. You've completely put me off my food. Or sex. Or both.

What Selene said. Voyeurism without honesty is just being a stalker.

Yes!! I so agree. We can have different voices, we do have different voices, that we use all the time, in different emotional or situational contexts. And they are all really and truly us! And that's one of things that makes us, all of us, so really interesting! None of us are flat; we are all multitudes of fascinating colours!

You mean that you haven't been, all this while?

You do this a lot, I've noticed.

This is stuffed full of useful information, Nalates! Thank you!!! The idea that you could use your viewer as a specialized camera/lens was an absolute revelation to me (although even in RL I'm most often a "point-and-click" girl). So too has the focus upon the importance of lighting introduced by Skell, and illustrated by so many of the pics here! There's so much to learn, but as I've always enjoyed learning, that's just fine!

I know whom you could ask to find out!

Hmmm, careful Love! You don't want to be the next one to get "the Treatment"! ?

I think Bree has it right here. This is an issue upon which I'm really pretty ambivalent. In RL, it's become an enormously contentious topic, prompted in part by the Rachel Dolezal affair, and (within more restricted circles) by an article published about a year ago in the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia that hypothesized that transracial identities were logically defensible using the same arguments that we now use to defend transgender identities. (The article created a very ugly series of confrontations and accusations that left no one looking very good). For reasons that I honestly can't define very well, yet alone defend, transracial identity feels to me . . . wrong. Perhaps it's because of the history of black face and cultural or racial appropriation in our culture? I wish I knew. But increasingly I've come to think that it should be ok to represent other races and cultures in SL. Unlike RL, where we see ethnicity as really central to our core identity, in ways that almost at times transcend gender, for instance, "becoming" another race may seem more problematic. But Second Life is built on the idea that we can explore and experiment with our identities: the expectations here are therefore different. If we see someone who "looks" black, for instance, in RL, we naturally assume that they are black. In SL, no such assumption exists, and most of us tend to deride those who insist upon a direct correspondence of RL to SL identities. We aren't trying to "fool" anyone here: this platform is about being somehow "different." So I agree with Bree that, where there is no conscious attempt to parody or appropriate or misrepresent, it should be alright to be who you want to be. The caveat that I'd add is that we must always be extremely sensitive to what we are doing if we attempt this. Representing another race/ethnicity isn't just another form of role play: it necessarily, and whether you intend it or not, involves contributing to how others are perceived and defined. And so those who represent different ethnicities have an enormously important responsibility: first of all, to get it as "right" as they can, and secondly to use it as an opportunity to learn what it means to be "other." And I guess this applies to gender representation here too: if you are using a "borrowed" identity to impose your own notions of how that identity is defined, you're just doing it wrong.

It really isn't your day, is it Drake?