Are you "Comfortable" with your avatar?

And in world you can't get it messed up by someone sneaking up and suddenly grabbing it and making fists...

It's only a matter of time before someone develops a script (or similar) to that effect, trust me.

OOH I would so want it too.... could sneaks up and ... well be running away from angry ladies with really thick rolled up newspapers

I, too, am glad Cel resurrected the thread, because I missed it the first time around, and I find it interesting.

The expression of comfort/discomfort with an AV runs throughout the thread, and it’s been interesting to reflect on what might be the reasons for this take.

Storm is the only one I saw who used the word ‘identity’ as a reason for preferring one form over another. And Xio mentions the immersiveness of SL. Me, I stick with my predominant AV – I have five - for those two reasons. I liken it to reading fiction, suspending disbelief, for a time, to be me but not me in a narrative of my own shaping.

Dakota mentions another powerful factor for me: my best friends in SL know me as Scott. Not that they wouldn’t accept me in another form. Some have, in fact, but I didn’t stay with those forms because, while I wasn’t uncomfortable in their skins, I did have a sense that they were “not me” in a way that Scot is. I guess my alts were expressions of a part of myself that are less complete than Scott, I’m not really sure.

I sure understand the guy who is uncomfortable running his female alt. Well over a year ago, I created a female alt for the sole purpose of testing whether or not I could snag a man. This proved far easier than I had imagined, and I felt like such a complete sh*t that I retired her after three days. (She did come in handy much later, for a short period, as the absentee Mistress of my wandering kajirus alt in Gor, but that was short-lived and another story.) This experience is one reason that I never run alts in the same circles as my other alts. It's just too deceptive and leaves me feeling like a heel.

At the moment, I believe that most of us have a “me/not me” reaction to the personas we try on in SL. It’s not just role play -- adopting and developing a character -- though some do seem to be able to do that with ease. I suspect that, for many, including me, what’s enduringly interesting about SL is the immersiveness of the medium allowing us to be the protagonists of our own unfolding narratives, be that as businessperson, child, warrior, submissive, demi-animal. And I don’t mean just fantasy. I think it *is* about identity. Some of these roles fit us somehow and others don’t.

I don’t understand it, but it beats television.

Yeah, I think I was onna those "cool av" people Teggo, lol. You're original...I don't see many Kangaroos, and when I DO, I don't see cyborg Kangaroos or nothin like that.

I think furries are harrassed more than Goreans in SL just for the sole fact that Gorean "masters" would really fight back hard as a matter of ego & pride...whereas I have seen that the furries still try to follow the TOS in most conflicts that I have witnessed. Also, given what I have seen from the structure of Gorean "society"

...I could see full-time griefers having a Gorean Main/Alt that they play with...apart from thier griefing, since they seem to have such low self-esteem. This ain't so insult Goreans.

...by this I mean that folks without any self-esteem, like the most active griefings out there would love to RP absolute power over slaves, as well as the frequent combat, since they like to shoot so much.

Just a theory.

Hmm then perhaps the cordless shaver would be next so people could sneak up and run it across your head like in the move Jackass

Hi.

Bye

Pep (Waits for the boring old pix suitable for necro'd threads to turn up.)

While this thread is dead, I had not seen it, so I did find it interesting and of course what I have to say is important enough to resurrect the dead. I have tried different shapes as costumes, but I really prefer having my avatar as me with cooler clothes/toys than I can have in RL. I am happy that I finally found a hair that looks right, and can stop using the slider hair. My avatar is a bit taller than me (but to scale with other avatars) but everything is about what I am in RL.

While this thread is dead, I had not seen it, so I did find it interesting and of course what I have to say is important enough to resurrect the dead. I have tried different shapes as costumes, but I really prefer having my avatar as me with cooler clothes/toys than I can have in RL. I am happy that I finally found a hair that looks right, and can stop using the slider hair. My avatar is a bit taller than me (but to scale with other avatars) but everything is about what I am in RL.

which 'other avatars'?

My avatar is only like me in respect to the shape (like my height and other proportions), not the face, or skin color.

I went looking for some boring old pix and found these:

Usually when I am in a large group, my avatar's height is about the same in comparison to where I would fall in a similar group in RL (I believe we just bump everyone's height up two standard deviations, but there may be an escalating height war that will continue to increase this until no one can fly because our avatars heads are above the limit for unassisted flight).

I know a number of other avatars I like to get comfy with.

(Oh, damn, there he goes again, straight to the gutter!)

Seriously, Immy, I'm glad you're comfortable with your av in SL, and I'm sure I'd be comfy hanging with you, going to the zoo or soda fountain, or any other completely age-difference-appropriate situation.

I do that too. I'm a relativist.

IRL, I'm 6'1", and very comfortable with that. I like being taller than most people but not so tall as to stick out. I can find people in a crowd, and I can hike out far on a sailboat, but I still (barely) fit in an airplane seat or sports car. As a kid I picked 6'2", seeing my father at the boundary for struggling, at 6'3". I hit 6'2" in the AM, when younger. I've also dated women my height IRL, and it's a treat -- just as are petites and everything in between. (I had one gf who was 6' tall and zipped around town in roller skates. It was always a pleasure bumping into her!)

In SL, I'm rarely taller than average among men, but that's no big issue (I can still find people in a crowd, thanks to camera angle!) I tend to adjust my height to women: considerably taller than petities, a head taller than most, and a bit shorter than a few. I find that's usually around 88.

I generally make my animations so that they work best when the woman's height is about 90% of the man's. (The bigger issue to account for in animations is the enormous difference in shoulder width, even for men who aren't shaped like circus freaks or he-man cartoons. Much more of an issue than height, unless one always leaves hands at sides.)

Old thread but new to me, so..

I have been known to claim that my shape now is almost like it was when I was new, but a recent review of old pics have made me realise how much all those "tiny" tweaks have added up to in changes. When I started out in SL, at least the facial structure was a lot like me in RL, not quite so much today. Like I think someone had said earlier - my SL avatar looks more like what I'd look like if we had the slider options in RL. I'm very comfortable with, and attached to my current look, and while I may go furry/horse/cat/security orb/houseplant/demon at times, it always feels good to put the good ol' default me back on.

I don't know if it is strange though, but the above applies to other accounts too - depending on what their default look is. I have alts that are full time furry, kid, and a furry kid, and when I'm logged on to these, I am equally attached to their "default" looks. No way would I feel right putting on a human shape when logged on to Ulv, and when Loren occasionally grows up, it's just hella awkward.

Oh and I also have a female alt, whom I use to grab free stuff designed for women that looks cool but would just look damned wrong on me. Not that she ever gets to use it but.. Don't all women have an inv.. a closet full of stuff never worn? I feel totally weird and clueless about how to interact when logged on to that one though, so she rarely sees the light of day.

Wah! This thread is a classic for me. =^-^=

It's a bit funny to see how much has changed and how much has stayed the same since then. (^_^)

I, for one, have still not been free from controversy, but really, I wouldn't have done anything differently. (^_^)y

I write fantasy in RL, I have had a few credits and I love the characters I make in SL. My avs are different facets of me that I can explore in a safe place. I started as realistic (to be different from all the stuff I'd heard about all these perfect shapes) having dropped in SL on a friend's suggestion. "You can change" she said, and that became the family crest (I've multiple avs) vampire, neko, winged, snarky, brooding, demon, fey, satyr...most of 'em love boots. I'm a packrat on XSt and freebie stores looking for avs, accessories, vehicles, non-human avs, textures, megaprims... and I realize that 99% of an av is in the details. 12 pack avs offer lip/slight skin hue/eye shadow change but nothing awesome. I take a skin that's close and tweak it for hours to find the real me--all of them, and like RL they change. I did get a custom skin tat that has meaning in all my worlds, and met some amazing designers of all sorts of items.

I shake my head at the 'bulked up' males that hulk around looking like they'd go off in a 'roid rage any minute. I just laugh at the females with bosoms that go around corners 5 minutes before the rest of their bodies do--come on ladies! We're already cartoons in SL--but this is ridiculous!

Each of me is defined, has a past, dreams, a look, sometimes a path, and they all like to play in SL.

I don't like my avatar, feel no connection to it, and have no desire to. Maybe I could get it by spending a few more dollars, but why?

1. I generally match my avatar to my real situation, mood, and so on. If I show up as an emo panda, be nice to me.

2. If someone's made uncomfortable by my avatar, I change it or toddle off somewhere else. There's plenty of people who are happy to deal with a ferret or dragon or chocobo or zebra-orca crossbreed.

3. There's forms my avatar takes when I feel uncomfortable. That's not quite the same thing.

I'll splash you with a bucket of hot water and turn you back in to an emo old man.

<3's Shampoo

What a great thread, I'm glad it got necro'd.

I'm very comfortable with my avatar, and can't imagine changing it at all, except in subtle ways. Although it's not what I look like in RL, it is very much what I wish I looked like. After well over a year now, my ginger hair and beard has become my trademark, more or less.

As for height, I deliberately made my avatar a few inches shorter than average, because I'm a few inches shorter than the average guy in RL too.

I like how I look in RL and have tried to turn the main features of my avatar into that look. The primary difference is that height in RL doesn't really translate well to SL.

In RL I am 5'10" and began with a taller avatar, but when I measured it in world I was like 8' tall in SL plus the look of the majority of really tall female AVs I saw at the time were scary...lol...so I scaled down a bit. In world the measuring places still have me around 6' or so.

Along the way I picked up a furry avatar, an Isle of Wyrms full size dragon as well as the hatchie version and a variety of tinies, but I only feel really comfortable and "myself" in human-close-to-my-RL-look AV.