Evolution and my AV

Dear Friends,

Tepic here again! The other day, meeting a new person, I was asked, "Are you a Neko?". Well, it's a fair enough question, as I do have ears and a tail (of which I am inordinately proud and which are very much of my sl character now). In the end, I had to check up on the Wikipedia (hoping the info was right! hehehe), and guess, beacuse I see my tail and ears as fox rather than cat, I am probably a Kitsune.

This was not that straight forward, as I have never specifically chosen to be Kitsune, it's something which has evolved with me over a long time. When I first came to sl, logging in for the very first time (boy, was I nervous and uncertain!), I was presented with a set of possible starting AVs, none of which really appealed to me. The clean cut hunk, the college boy, the nightclubber, none felt right, and as for the lady AVs, I could never play a lady convincingly. However, there was one last AV, what looked to my eyes as a fox (oh OK, I learnt later that it was some kind of ringtailed ocelot or something like that!), and I instantly felt I could be a fox in this wonderful new world.

I walked proudly into sl wearing my new form, fully dressed and looking forward to exploring and making new friends to be greeted by another new arrival, with the words "Ewwwwwww.... you are a furry! That's sick!". hehhee my first encounter with sl cyber prejudice! Anyway, I was not deterred, and spent the next few months exploring some wonderful new places and making friends I still have now.

I also started to make modifications to my AV, creating my own fox fur textures, changing the prims to look more fox-like. It was a fun and productive time, I didn't feel constrained by the adult role I would have otherwise have taken on - after all, I was a fox!

Although I was enjoying myself, I had not found a community I felt I belonged in, no matter that I visited the Furry sims, they were nice enough, and the people were fine, but it still wasn't really me. It was about then that I heard about the possiblity of being a cub or kid in sl, something I hadn't considered. However, it felt like an interesting experiment, so, with a little searching, I found freebee cub and kid shapes, which I tried out for size. I was also lucky to find Nemo Beach, and a safe area to explore my inner youth.

In those days, you could find me messing about on the beach, either as a fox cub or a human boy, and I had found a community I felt I could be a real part of. More and more, I stayed in human form, and with a few tweeks, made the free boy shape I had found into the me you can see today!

I was happy as I was, though usually described myself as part fox, there was nothing to show that independence of spirit I saw in the fox I had been. I had seen other kid AVs with tails and ears, who described themselves as Neko or Kitsune, neither term I was familiar with, and we have our share of cat/puppy/wolf/otter people. It was like I was missing something to make my AV identity complete.

Then, by chance, I came across a starter kit of ears and tail, that I could colour and change to how I wanted to look. I took the chance, and have been wearing them ever since!

Occasionally, my tail will vanish when I attache some object, but as soon as possible, I put it back - not something that should be a mere de-tail! My AV now feels right for me, not from a constructed image I had way back when I started, but by a process of slow evolution. Sometimes I meet new people who have arrived, and immediatly taken on a kid AV, this may well be right for them, but I do wonder if they have missed something in the evolution process I and some of my friends have gone through.

What do you, reader, think?