I am Woman, Hear Me Roar

So, about that protuberance mentioned in my last...

Well, I was at the Fantasy Faire, in Hope's Horizon (the Gondor-themed sim, if you recall), and I went in a shop, as you do when you are not setting yourself on fire and jumping off high things.  The shop was MD/ND, skins and avatar accessories and stuff, and they had these lioness avatars on display....

"Hmm," I thought, "that skin actually looks like pretty good quality, especially around the face."

Now, like a lot of people, I have acquired some freebie neko stuff over my time in SL, but I get rather embarrassed at the thought of wearing it and standing next to Tali, who is such a carefully and beautifully crafted example of a feline avatar.  But these things didn't look embarrassing at all.  And there were demos, so I decided to take one home and try it on.

And, I thought, it actually didn't look bad.  It was a style I could work with... and one of their lioness avis was in an RFL vendor, and the whole point of the Faire, really, is to raise money for RFL....

So, a donation to RFL later, there I was, assembling the various bits and pieces required to become part lioness.

This meant opening up the shape editor for the first time in something like two years, ever since I fixed that glitch that was making my eyeballs come through my eyelids sometimes.  While I was quite definite about keeping the same basic Glorf shape that has stood me in good stead over the years, a small pointy human nose simply didn't fit the shape of a leonine muzzle, so a great deal of flattening, broadening and general softening of outline was needed there.

I know a great many people think nothing of chopping and changing their appearance on a whim, but (as people who've read my rubbish for a while may remember), I'm not one of them.  An actual change of The Way This Bulmer Woman Presents Herself Inworld is, to me, a significant event, necessitating a certain amount of consideration and introspection.  I know, of course, I can always change it back if I don't like it, but....

Anyway, you can see for yourselves.

The rounded lioness ears are not as mobile and expressive as Tali's, alas, nor are my whiskers as impressive as hers.

Snapshots taken while reloading on the sea bed at Pooley.  Any remarks about wet pussies will be treated with the contempt they deserve.

 

Of course, how I feel about it is by no means the only factor... there is also the reaction of the important catlady in my life to consider.  (By the way, the readership-at-very-small does realize that Tali and I are a couple, right?  That we weren't testing all those couples animations in the Steam Hunt out of a spirit of purely disinterested academic inquiry?  OK, just checking.)

In a sense, that is the important part of the whole undertaking.  Most people who opt for a furry lifestyle in SL, I gather, do so out of a deep-seated emotional connection to a particular kind of animal.  It's not something that I have, myself - I've always been quite adamant that if I have a "spirit animal", it's of the species homo sapiens.  But it turns out I do have a deep emotional connection with a particular feline... and the experience of being feline is something I'd like to share with her.

Besides which, she can do amazing things with her tail and her whiskers (no, no details, this is still Not That Sort of Blog), and I'm looking forward to trying those out for myself....

So, there we are.  An explanation for the tail.  Will this be a permanent change, or just another costume to wear in SL?  We shall see, as time goes on.