“My SL Family Story” challenge
So today I decided that I wanted to have a try at starting an SL blogger challenge. It isn’t exactly a “challenge” in the exact sense of the word, but I thought that for some people it might be a challenge to share these kinds of things with an audience. I know that for some people it can be a sensitive topic. Both for people who are in the Second Life family community as well as for people who aren’t. People who aren’t, however, tend to have quite a closed and maybe even negative perspective on SL families, or SL children in particular. This is definitely one of the reasons that I decided to do this challenge. I want to share my view on it, and I would love to read other people’s experiences and opinions on it as well.
The rules are very easy: take a picture with a member (or multiple members) of your SL family, and answer the questions below. Take my answers out, and put in your own. Then, when you publish your blogpost leave a comment (either here on my blog, or on the picture on my Flickr) and provide a link so I, as well as others, can read it! I do want to state that if you have a negative view or expierence with SL families, to not leave negative comments. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and opinions may not always be voluntarily – but you always have a choice between spreading negativity or not. I certainly hope this enlightens people, and who knows, maybe even gets some people to try out the SL family community themselves! Because I can tell you, there certainly are a few amazing people you can meet, and a lot of love to be given and received.
- Skin: .tsg. Hope :: X tone :: Bust :: No Brows :: NT – Soft Body
- Hair: (Chemistry) Hair – Buttons 2 (Not Rigged)
- Binky: jk: Cute Paci’s Gatcha – MUTE BUTTON
- Doll: .:LBM:. Princess Dolly Red (Woodland Treasures Gatcha)
- Overalls: Little Closet – Short Overalls – Dark Wash – BABY
&
- Hair: [LeLutka]-MALEFICENT – Powder
- Earrings: J U D A S ::: The Revolution
- Necklace: ::GB:: Curb chain necklace
- Top: Izzie’s – Low Neck Tee emerald
- Jacket: *COCO*_BomberJacket (Black)
- Pants: DeeTaleZ Mesh Pants loose low
- Shoes: _CD_ Oxygen II Black
1. What is your SL family surname?
Grey-King. Grey from my mom, King from my dad.
2. What is the make-up of your family? (Parents, kids, siblings etc)
Mom & dad, one twin sister, one baby sister, one forever sister. Then there’s my two kids, my grandmother, and my aunts. I have some nieces too, and I even have a grandchild!
3. How long have you been in the SL family community?
Err, I would say almost two years now
4. When did you first hear about the SL family community and what was your view on it before you were in it?
Hmm, I think I first heard about it from an SL and RL friend of mine. I think she told me about these age-play sims that had been in the news, and that there were perverts playing as kids and well… doing innapropriate stuff. I guess you could say that my first impression wasn’t very good. From that moment on I thought SL kids were creepy, simply because I thought all of them were perverted. Later on, whenever I came across people who had stuff about their SL families in their picks (since I was at Hogwarts: Your Story and Mischief Managed a lot, I quite often ran into SL teenagers who had families) I thought “ew…” I thought that these people had some serious psychological issues. I thought maybe they had mommy- and daddy issues.
5. How did you join your (first) SL family?
My mom kind of forced me into it. Honestly, that’s how it went. I thought SL families were creepy, but I lived on the homestead of my mom back then with my now forever sister Rose and my mom. I think Rose was talking about her SL mom, and then, Anna just asked me: “Elisa do you have SL parents!?” and I said no, so she immediately responded with “Well then now you’re my daughter.” And I’ve been her daughter ever since.
6. Do you have a kid avatar?
Yes, both on my alt as well as on my main account! Sometimes I get lazy and don’t want to log into my alt to, for example, test a rig or simply when I want to annoy my mom or want to take a picture with her.
7. Do you have an adult avatar?
Yep, my main avatar.
8. When did you first decide to make a child avatar?
At some point I had identified myself as a teen avatar. I was always roleplaying at Mischief Managed as a teenager. The age-range in Mischief Managed (or Hogwarts: Your Story back then) is 11 to 17, so naturally, I looked young. I also wore my IC avatar while I was OOC, and therefore just started calling myself a teen avatar. Sometimes my mom had friends with SL children, and they would be amazingly adorable. They acted so cute, looked adorable, and I realized that really not every child avatar was a perverted creep. I had also previously thought that they looked weird – but due to some kid avatars on Flickr, Plurk and SL facebook I started to see that they could look very adorable! So at some point, my mom asked me if I wanted to make a kid avatar, and we went shopping together. At first I had a big kid avatar, and later on I bought a ToddleeDoo mesh avatar as well, since that’s easier to buy clothes for.
9. Why do you play a child avatar?
I choose to play a child avatar because it’s a lot of fun. It’s fun to take pictures and look cute, it’s fun to annoy my mom, it’s fun to run around and be silly and adorable. It’s fun to hit other kids, whine about wanting a unicorn for your birthday – and to ask your mommy for ice cream. It’s a lot of fun, and from the very beginning I have enjoyed being and acting like a child. It’s completely innocent, and I just love it.
10. What do you like about being a parent in SL?
I love having children in SL. I’ve been an SL mom for about… well, maybe 6 months now. The first few months were a bit weird (that’s when I first started trying to start my own SL family, since my mom had left SL temporarily) and in the beginning it didn’t really work out. I thought that maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a mom in SL and that I should stop trying. But my first real daughter Niki or Sticky came as a little blessing and I love her so much for making my family expierence in SL so much better. Later on we looked for a sibling for her, and found my son Henry. I would be lying if I would say that the fact that I would love to have children irl in the future wouldn’t be a contributing factor to why I love being a mom in SL. It definitely is, but the thing that I enjoy most about being a mom is just that besides having two children, I have two amazing friends that I love.
11. Do you do family roleplay? If so, what kind of roleplay? Paragraphs, emoting – or just “acting like”?
I don’t really do family roleplay in the sense of paragraph roleplaying or just roleplaying how I normally do in roleplay sims. We don’t post paragraphs of text and sit down and have a meal together. I do, however, act like a mother with my kids. I do act like a kid when I am in my kid avatar. I, for example, emote that I throw food at my sister or hit her. Or I ground my kids for doing those things to their siblings. I haven’t really done intensive family paragraph roleplay yet – maybe have a dinner and actually sit down and roleplay it out – but that’s definitely something I want to try.
12. Do you have any special family-related activities? (Dinners, camp etc.)
We don’t really have dinners but I think I might ask my family to do this with me! I remember I had one dinner with my sister, nieces and kid once and that was pretty funny. My sister pretended to cook spaghetti and eventually called for a pizza and we just sat there and had fun. Beside that I did go to camp Hardknock last week, and that was soo much fun. I loved it. It gave me kind of an idea how other SL families work – since mine is crazy.
13. What is the thing you love most about your SL family?
I love that my family is crazy. I love that we have an enormous mansion with a stable in front of it and even had a pool in the back – and love that we pretend to be all rich and stuff. I love it when my mom threatens to cut my creditcard in half, or when I make a mess and tell her that the maid will clean it. I like to tell my mom I’m having an affair with our imaginary poolboy, or that I stole her ex boyfriends from her. I love taking pictures with them, or just talking. But most of all, I love that my family isn’t just my family, but first of all just my tight group of friends that I have a lot of fun with.
So yeah, feel free to join in whenever you want! If you see this blogpost three months after it has been published; don’t feel weird about doing it. I for one will enjoy reading it. Maybe you don’t have a blog but want to share? Maybe answer the questions under a Flickr picture. I would just love to see how other people’s SL families are. Most of all, have fun! ♥
OKKBYE 