#vrchat pop up

[sleepingxawake]

DJ POP UP! - Thursday - 11/21

Doors: 10:30p EST

Sleeping Awake (jazz house): 11p EST

Neo Absolution (electro house): 12a EST

ROGUES.7385 << VRChat Group

18+ Event // Venue TBD

[xxtc-96xx]

Was looking for a mewtwo avatar in VRChat and

He popped up on the avatar list lol

If I ever get vr chat somehow I want my twos lol apparently all of them are there XD

[jupiterjelliez]

posting this to tumblr too but nobody gaf so

The issue(s) with the Sun and Moon ‘fandom’, under the cut (i encourage you to add your own horror story regarding any topic about this)

- The sexualization 🔞

I would argue that the sexualization of these two are *almost* to the same level Toy Chica is and im so tired of it. Because of the overwhelming amount of it. You cannot search up their names without something suggestive popping up, on any platform. I fear that im looked as one of the people that sexualize them to high heaven because of the overwhelming amount of fans that do. and theres alot of people who are uncomfortable with it period and cannot get away from it. because of them we ALL look like gooners. thats not even mentioning the amount of nsfw accounts ive had to block ever since i started posting them more consistently. and they were all dca centered. its gross and it just uncomfortable. a heavy part of the issue is also the abundance of vrchat models of them. most, if not ALL are sexualized in some way. ive seen so many with higher proportions, ripped to have ‘assets’ added, for fucks sake someone enabled one of those assests in front of CHILDREN in a public lobby. makes the character unappealing too with how everyone sees him

- The sun and moon show fandom 📺

I think the first red flag was it being made only 3 months after Security Breach first released. Im not gonna get into its personal drama as i truly just dgaf but this isnt about that. Its how its affected the characters so lets start. The show gets their characters COMPLETELY wrong, its just oc’s with the name plastered on it. And the amount of stupid characters are introduced makes it hard to make custom designs and search up certain ones, such as jack o moon. The show has caused a complete misunderstanding of their character, some starting to believe that is just the undeniable canon. ive seen people get harassed over “hey this is incest” on a sunxmoon post. when its not. Ive also had my friends who do impressions be harassed to do these characters that they dont know. and have had friends who draw needing to clarify it isnt tsams. or to draw it. its obnoxious. not to mention its crawling with creeps and an unsafe enviorment for kids. i was sent death threats trying to expose those creeps that still walk away scott free today. which irritates me. also the show just sucks lol its just content farm slop? stop hyping it up? its been two years with daily nonstop.

-Watering them down 💧

ok. im not gonna name names. but 90% of fan models have ruined peoples perception of how they are designed flawlessly. and the over abundance of these models have also inbred even worse ones. i honest to god think these models started some of the biggest stereotypes when it comes to the fanart. the sharp teeth, the long hat, the petals, the claws, the paws, all things that originated from the models. makes me upset because it gets to a point where all these attributes make the design stray farther and farther from what they originally are (along with the personalities deteriorating) makes them completely different people. i have a mutual that has taken these and made their own oc based off of it and its awesome.

im too tired to continue but you get my point. i hate the way theyre treated and i dont associate with anyone who does the above. theyre underrated characters, but their fanon interpretations are overrated. they dont deserve half the shit they recieve. good day

[thesockghost]

Astral body lore !UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

This post has a lot of information that I got from Starr⭐️ over on YouTube! So huge shoutout to her for all this!!!

She’s also got some killer music taste, (I’m listening to her Castor themed playlist as of writing this lol) so be sure to check her out on Spotify as well if you’d like!

CHARACTER BOIS!!!

Castor

Pollux

Gemini

Nebula

Taurus

Leo

Libra

Aries

The antimatter

GENERAL POINT OF THE ASTRALS

The main point of the astral bodies existence is to postpone the end of the universe as long as possible. The way they do this is by fighting the incarnations of antimatter that pop up all over the universe. Each astral is assigned a role, for example: Castor and Pollux scout out worlds to see if they are corrupted by antimatter. If so, Taurus and Leo destroy said planet before it can spread.

FACTS ABOUT some OF THE ASTRALS

Honorable mentions that I think are too small of facts/too obvious to get their own sections:

Since the astral body’s are made out of light (mentioned multiple times throughout the show, but I think the first mention is in ‘EARTH and POLLUX Become BEST FRIENDS?! In VRCHAT’) they can move through walls and most physical structures and surfaces.

It’s been shown that the astral are very bitchy about their schedules/pisces and sagittarius are friends(?), as shown In the episode ‘Castor and Pollux's PLAN for LUNAR?! in VRCHAT’ Castor and Pollux said this: “everyone’s getting angry! I mean- they like things to be punctual! They like things on their own timetable.” “Those two are very awful about it.” (Note: in this scene the twins are complaining about how the other astrals are rushing them on find out if lunar’s a threat or not, and their complaining about Leo and taurus in particular.) *sigh* “Pisces and Sagittarius are likely doing their own thing.”. I looked up what the personalities of Pisces and Sagittarius, and they generally seem like they’d probably be more nice (if google is correct), and I might be jumping to conclusions on this one, but I think that they might be friends, due to the way that castor mentioned them together, and google says that they have a very high friendship potential.

The astral shave their own culture. Mentioned in the current latest episode as of writing this: ‘Gemini SENDS A MESSAGE in VRChat’, Gemini mentions that the stars have their own etiquette, but never really gave any context beyond that since they thought if they told lunar, then it would break his mind, WHICH IS COMPLETELY UNFAIR. BESTIE I DO NOT CARE IF IT MAKES ME INSANE, IN CASE YOU COULDNT TELL FROM ME WRITING THIS ENTIRE ESSY, THE ADDED INFORMATION WILL ONLY MAKE MY HYPERFIXATION STRONGER. *cough cough* so anyways yeah this section is basically just a place holder till we get more info on their culture.

The astrals can for some reason not be seen by colorblind creatures??? Mentioned in the episode ’Lunar Is FRIEND ZONED! in VRChat’, because there was a deer standing near lunar and Gemini said “it must be comfortable in your presence” and when lunar asked why they didn’t care about Gemini, with which they responded with “no we are more or less invisible to them. See?” Then they started to run around the deer. And when asked why by lunar they replied with “most animals on your planet are colorblind. We are light. If light can’t reflect the way it’s meant to, then we kinda just come off as invisible.” WHICH MAKES NO F*CKING SENSE AT ALL!!! Cuz like yes. they wouldn’t be able to see them in their full glory, but if an animal were to look at them they’d at least see a glowing figure towering above them!!! So yea, it was probably just a bit to explain why a deer would be standing so close to them, but it still makes no sense.

The astral body’s can naturally produce star power without creating any anti matter. (Mentioned in the episode ‘Moon is THREATENED by GEMINI?! in VRCHAT’ I think.)

they also apparently have a jail as well. They can also essentially perma ban people from L I F E. Not killing them, when they do this apparently said victim gets sucked into the void and is in constant pain. So that’s fun- (mentioned in the episode ‘Gemini CONFRONTS Lunar again in VRChat’

Whenever the astrals are around antimatter, they start to feel progressively more nauseous. And wherever/whoever is admitting said antimatter, smells incredibly potent to the point where they can taste it. and it apparently smells like: [and I quote] “like if somebody mixed anchovies with rotten eggs”. (Judging from lunar’s reaction to Monty’s antimatter infested arm in the episode ‘Dazzle's NEW JOB in VRChat’.)

And lastly, and probably the most obvious of all, the astral body’s do not need to eat or sleep, since the astral body’s are made of light.

[phightinghottakes]

Another member of phighting vr places 👋

I have seen several avatars that in the menu read things you aren’t allowed to do in them.

And where I respect the makers boundaries some of them are extremely stupid.

“Don’t use subkit in this avatar”

“Don’t make nsfw jokes in this avi’

“Biograft is three”

“None of this none of that yap yap yap”

Some of them have fucking codes to get rid of the pop up tags in the your face!

What I have learned from also making avatars myself is that you can’t control what people do in your avatars. With the amount of people there are in Vrchat things are bound to happen to them

Make them private if you don’t want this.

But if it is Public. Key word public. People will do what they want with it.

Making your avatars public and then telling people not to do specific things with them is like telling a teenager to pay attention. They’ll do the opposite of what you say.

[calicodreamer]

CALICO WATCHES THE SUN AND MOON SHOW: LETS GO

Lets make this clear. So, First of all I'm only covering two episodes today (ADHD POOR IMPULSE REGULATION LETS GO).

Secondly, As an apology for my silence in my never ending quest to get through all GAZILLION of the Sun and Moon shows episodes, you can have two posts in a short amount of time.

Typically warnings for Spoilers, even though this is really early on into the series, I am like, a good few episodes in? So its probably good to spoiler warn outside of the tags.

11:37 ROXANNE WOLF Chooses SUN or MOON in VRCHAT

This episode took a lot less time  for me to eventually watch due to how the last episode treated me. Frankly, I was expecting a lot more cringe than what I got, so I was excited to watch the next episode and got over the “No clicky clicky” mental block.

And I was hoping this two wouldn't cringe, and there was no intro! So My hopes were high!

And sorely misplaced. I had to physically throw myself out of my bed and to my computer to type this down so I could not click off the episode.

But like Sisyphus I am bound, and here I continue with my efforts to continue this short series.

Instead of their usual icons they have little pop up things, depending on who’s POV it is. 

So the episode opens with Sun and Moon arriving at the restaurant so Sun can go on his date with Roxanne. The restaurant is empty, Roxanne is there with her Dommy Mommy voice, and Gregory is also there (For some fucking reason, and he sounds terrible), and Roxy thinks she’s going on a date with Moon -

Oh poor Sun

But they decided to Just roll with it, and Sun takes Gregory to help him with this date for his brother. 

Sun is VERY large compared to Gregory, and I am enjoying it greatly. 

So they feed them (Roxanne and Moon, who is currently having an awful time on his date.) Pancakes, and then Sun finds a Duck (Who is actually a Goose) and tries to get Gregory to help him cook it. And he does? This is fantastic

(I am suffering)

“What are your hobbies?” “Science, the occasional murder, something serious.” Moon you are the only thing getting me through this

Sun admits to Waterboarding the Goose to kill it, Moon has a legal system in his head. 8 minutes in, I don’t wanna live here anymore. The only thing thats keeping me going through this episode is typing this

Actually the episode ends up fairly well, Sun and Roxanne agree to go on another date after Moon gets sick of having to put up with this facade being that Moon doesn’t even really like Roxanne, who gets huffy about it., which is cute, and If I wasn’t spoiled, I’d be rooting for there relationship

I was told this episode involved a murder attempt, and y’know what its okay for me to be wrong.

12:22 Sun and Moon TRANSFORM into ECLIPSE in VRCHAT

This is the introduction of Eclipse, and he just shows up to be a dramatic little fucker for a while, and bite at Moon because he’s a petty little bastard. Like - HE REALLY hates moon for some reasons.

Eclipse girlies this is the start of your buffet.

There isn’t a traditional intro, but still an Intro that I find less cringe, which is essential just Moon being like “I’m worried about Sun ™, Let me go check on him.”

and then Sun shows up and is like, “Lemme be real suspicious, and act not like Sun at all, and also gaslight Moon.” 

Moon is also getting STEADILY fed up with Not sun for a good while.

The episode starts with “And now I know that's not Sun-” which is like a KILLER LINE - I am paraphrasing the original part of that sentence.

We are introduced to another personality, and he has a killer sense of theatrics, like - I am ENJOYING this guy. He’s such a little stinker.

“Your right about the code.. Even the smallest portion of it…” _ GO WHITE BOY GO

Moon being over protective and angsty, and the first bit of Eclipse being just a part of Moon that evolved after he left Sun’s original body, which relates to this theory that I have regarding the multiple different personalities that just happen to pop up within Suns original Code, But we can get there eventually.

“People like to call me Eclipse.” Babygirl What people? we just met you.

Moon being worried about his brother for ten minutes, and I LOVE Eclipse’s voice. 

The VR models glitching around During these super serious moments are funny.

The also canonically have an editor, there is a whole other dude here, AND children in the day-care

So Like, Eclipse has been running around unchecked in Suns body for 24 hours, and Moon Loses his shit because he couldn’t tell the difference. Poor Sun has no idea what’s happening, because he wasn’t conscious when Eclipse was in the drivers seat. 

“He’s OUR eclipse.” Good line Moon Voice actor very good.

Moon feeling guilty mark one

They’re doing a good job at building up Eclipse as a threat, Poor babies

And the fact that Moon still remembers sharing a body with Sun and how much he didn’t like that

Also they have a home that isn’t the day-care and I don’t know how I feel about that (They do have like, Bunkers, and whole other house)

So my final thoughts: This is the beginning of less happy fun times and constant drama, and like, screw you wiki, lying to me about the suffering of Gregory - Even though he deserves it for his awful voice.

Moon and Sun - Still a duo that I enjoy. Though it should be Noted that Moon is much more tolerable when he's not stressed. It doesn't look like either of the boys have any real coping mechanism's right not for dealing with any emotion that they don't like. Sun looks to be internalizing most of his issues right now, while Moon is largely explosive and externalizes most of his emotions - Probably because he wasn't always able to.

More to Come

-Calico

[tsbs-prompt-dump]

Nexus and Bloodmoon team up (in VRChat)

I don’t know how, I don’t know why, all I know was I was singing Champion of Destruction With Lyrics and the image of them working together popped into my mind

And now it won’t leave

Do with this what you will

-

[unisex-muffin]

BREAKING NEWS

Local pop artist makes fucked up version of VRChat that gains free will

More at 11

[mazyb0i]

Other RnM fans?

Rick n Morty fan creator/artist here, trying to make friend brohs with ppl who are also obsessed with the show. I have a hard time reaching out due to my anxiety. (proshippers DNI)

tldr; you're also a neurodivergent queer artist nutjob that makes crackpipe art an shitposts, heavily kins a character at one point or another, and we should be friends because we can be insane together LMFAO

Fav show ships: BP x Rick all day, (I love flesh curtains, and their dynamic is just so yes... I...) Morty x Alaska (i named the vat of acid gf Alaska because the Alaska trip..) Summer x that one girl... Morticia X Jessica, Rickcest/ Rick selfcest is aight, I obsess over Miamicop. I think selfcest in cloning / multiuniverse theory is harmless, but don't come at me with any of that proshipper/inc3st/rickorty shit. I will block you, report you, and put you on a DNI beware list; this is a threat & a warning. That shit is never EVER ok.

if we become friends/wanna know about;

I'm diagnosed Audhd, I'm a transmasc demiboy, I like to be referred to as nonbinary and a transgender male with He/They pronouns. Panromantic Demisexual.

I'm a rick kinnie, just means I identify with rick, in another universe I could be him XD, I relate to him, we share the same personality literally (ENTP 7w8); he's my self identifying comfort character. But my big interest with this show/comic is probably due to some kind of autistic hyper fixation and imprintation.

Hobbies: Crafting, Digital illustration, Fursuit /Costume making, Youtube, 3D designing, Making silly video skits, Writing, Character design, Shit posting, Creating ai voice bots for fun n fandom purposes (will make le memes), Trying to be a youtuber like Imbrandonfarris and Britany Broski, collecting stuff, VRchat, Collecting fluffy soft shit like stuffies, pillows, blankets, and hoodies. I SLEEP IN A NEST OF ALL OF THESE

Personality?: Chaotic, Unhinged, Tired and fed up with this shit, All the Energy AND NO ENERGY, I'm so tired please god help me, i'm an enigma. Ambiverted. If ur looking for a cool crazy cat dude broh who draws weird ass digital art and is always tired but jacked on coffe, adderall, and Naproxen i'm your guy.... :'}

I do alot of art and have alot of burnouts due to my adhd- I've been told I'm  innovative, clever, and expressive. I can jury-rig your glasses easily with a paperclip if you're screw comes out and loose frames causes the lens to pop. I'm very detail and idea-oriented, i come up with thousands of ideas, questions, and theories. Because of this, I tend to come up with one idea after another without actually going forward with plans and actions because i get so overwhelmed with my massive brain XD

Even tho I'm socially awkward, I love people, I want to make friends. I like being alone a lot but I hate feeling lonely. :C When I get to know you I'm very very chatty; as long as I'm not too tired or piled with heaps of assignments. I would say I'm pretty laid-back and easy to get along with, I get so stuck up in my personal world up in my head that I lose sight of important things around me, I blame the adhd. I'm an observer, I like to watch and see how things happen, I am a very hands on person.

I'm constantly learning, i love science with a passion. I got hyperfixated on evolution of different animal clades a while back. I am immensely curious and focused on understanding how the world operates and functions. I'm looking for mental and intellectual stimulation, lettuce skip casual conversation about wheather- whats your favorite dinosaur? (fuck ignore my dyslexia) and before you say a pterodactyl let me stop you right there- they aren't dinosaurs. if you like understanding the world through learning various things about science, technology, or culture, I'm your guy. but I'm also just a silly hoo hoo aah smart ass.

god this is finally done... I've been writing this for an hour......

[fnaffersblog]

Alright take two.

Spoilers for the sun and moon show episode

the sun and moon episode RUIN Sun TRAPPED Moon in VRCHAT LOLOLOLOL See link above

It's late and EVERYTHING is funny

(Trigger Warning Below Cut for: discussions of violence [Bloodmoon, Jigsaw], discussions of mental health [Sun], swearing, [because I'm incorrigible])

I'll be honest I do NOT like the name Jigsaw. I just simply do not like it. It's just not clicking with me for some reason. It sounds like the name is still up in the air in the show as well, but I hope I settled with it real quick if it does become the canon name for this dude.

I couldn't tell you WHY. It's just not sitting with me yet, which is bothering me because it's such a silly reason to dislike the appearance of a character. Especially since I REALLY like this guy.

yeah ya'll are right. Moon's concern for Sun's wellbeing is endearing

More of a gripe with Security Breach, but they missed an opportunity to call the game Glampire. I mean, come on. It's right there!

I try very hard not to be someone who nips about stuff on the show but the 'watch to the end to see...' is... really annoying. I've had to click off a couple videos because I was just... I dunno, they struck me the wrong way? Like, I'm already watching the episode? I want to watch the episode? I don't want to watch the episode when that thing pops up, makes me feel like I'm being told my attention span is not long enough or something. It feels kinda... insulting? But it feels dumb to call it that. It's just something I'm perturbed by. :/ I feel like I saw someone else mention this somewhere, maybe here or in the comments of a vid. So I hope it's not just a me thing.

I wonder why they started doing that? Maybe people were only watching so far into the videos? I'd be genuinely interested in seeing the analytics of the channel. I know that's not an option lol, but I just like data and looking at data. Correlating it to decisions and stuff. ANYWAY

I've also never understood peoples, like, people point out the cameras a lot as being shorter than normal or taller than normal or shakier and ascribing that to being a character when it just always felt like camera work to me. Cause, you know, it's VR CHAT, they gotta work with what they got.

But I did kind of understand this episode, because all I could imagine as Moon was walking through the Arcade back area was Ruin/Jigsaw/'whatever their name is when it's cemented in the future' doing that goofy, like, long legged cartoon walk where someone's sneakin' around in like tom and jerry or loony toons.

or Sims 4 because this is the closest gif I could find lol

THEY'RE SO GODDAMN MENACING RRRRRRRRRGH

They make me genuinely nervous when they TALK it's so GOOD

Like, my heart clenches up you know what I mean?

"THERE'S NOTHING TO SEPERATE" SLAPPIG MY LEGS SLAPPING MY LEGS YESSSSSSSSSS

BOP IT TWIST IT BREAK IT BEND IT KILL YOUR FAMILY FUCK AROUND FIND OUT SPIN IT

LOL THEY DID IT RIGHT AFTER I DID IM WHEEZING

This guy is so. They're SO interesting to me. They're

They remind me of Bloodmoon. But only a little bit. In, like, a similar but opposite way.

so Bloodmoon, like I've said before, was built for killing. It was weaved into their code from the get-go to be violent. But they also enjoyed it, killing people was something they relished in.

This guy also seems to enjoy killing people, but unlike Bloodmoon, if they are to be believed, they are a fusion between Sun and Moon. As far as we know Sun and Moon were not programmed with any sort of penchant for violence. There was Killcode, but Killcode was a virus before he gained sentience, and if New Moon is anything to base off of, those violence urges were not hard coded into him. And if the AI is to be believed the only two folks in this particular robot are Sun and Moon.

Which seems to me like wherever this want for torture came from, they developed it on their own. Whether that be because of the events of the Ruin DLC or what, I don't know but I'm super excited to see all that unfold.

They also seem to enjoy it differently. Bloodmoon killed his victims, violently. They seemed to enjoy the viscera and gore of murdering people more than the lead up. After all they liked blood.

This guy is much more patient, all the way down to how they speak. They enjoy causing PAIN. It's a game to them, because it's fun. Their enjoyment comes from the torment before the kill. It's why he describes what he's going to do to Moon, I don't even think they mention killing at all, THAT'S what he enjoys.

"Moon suggest a different game! Moon suggest a different game!" Lol

"Rock a bye baby *doge w/dolphin sounds*" Had me crying.

As Jigsaw was following Moon back out of the arcade, they'd pass into a more shaded area and his eyes glowed which was Really cool and also Really unsettling.

"We can make them count as limbs" fuck me he's so unsettling

STOP DOING THE POOR SINNERS HAND BIT STOP IT STOP IT

PUT IT BACK ON THE SHELF

WE'RE PUTTING IT THE CABINET

" I don't owe you anything."

"Yes you do! You owe me a game!" Pouty face. (:(

Should have suggested, like, a vocal rendition of Rush E or The Diva Dance from The Fifth Element or something.

I guess... they're robots though. So maybe notes like that wouldn't affect them. Might have set them on fire thought maybe?

Moon's performance was very nice! It really is a good song for his character. It takes a lot of confidence to sing in front of ANY type of audience.

Jigsaw really takes everything in stride. Moon insults him and he doesn't even respond at all.

The lil' nose boop.

The little head bonk.

"I'm yOU remember?"

OOOHHH He does NOT like cheating OOOOOOHHHHHHHH EFFFFFF

I was wrong there are something's he does not take in stride

I

LOVE him. He is shooting way up on my list of characters I look forward to seeing in episodes.

"Well I'm still standing here!" "And I'm way better than I ever was." LOL

You know I can see no cons of creating a portal gun. I think that would be highly beneficial and there would be no terrible outcomes that ignite from the building of a piece of machinery that allows instantaneous travel between two designated locations via breaking the very fabric of space time. Not a single bad thing could come from making something

Yeah okay never mind

(Sorry I gotta poke a leettle bit of fun at the guy who decided making the Newton Star was a good idea thinking making another high-tech piece of equipment is a good idea. I'll make fun of the satellite too, probably, when it comes around don't ya'll worry)

"Ohhhh NOOOoooo DOn't LEEaave ME MOOOnnn PLEEEeaase." As Moon just turns around and walks away

Followed immediately by a fucking jump scare Jesus Christ

But it worked right? It fucking worked, it lulled me into a false sense of security. Like, this guy who was threatening Moon's limbs not seven minutes earlier went into goofy silly clown mode and I fell for it sooooo, like. It worked.

It sounds like this was the first time Moon actually said anything about his trip to another dimension to Sun. So this is being dropped onto Sun with almost no warning.

Sun learned Moon would be gone for a week, and immediately went 'can we hang out?'

He very much needs some support right now. We're, what, a week post-hallucination episode? He needs his support group with him right now, it is a critical point, but he's too afraid to ask for it straight up so instead he's asking around it so to speak.

Instead of asking Moon to stay or telling him what the problem is, he's asking if Moon will play a game with him instead. Hang out. Be in his presence.

There are so many reasons this could be. Perhaps he would feel selfish asking Moon to hold off on completing this satellite to stay with him, especially if he's not comfortable with telling Moon WHY just yet, because if he doesn't offer a reasonable explanation then there's no justification for Moon staying, at least in Sun's eyes. It could be embarrassment over the issues, maybe he feels like he's blowing it out of proportion. Maybe he feels like he's asked or taken too much support already, and outright asking for more will end in not having any support at all.

Any number of things. It's easier to ask now when he knows Moon is 'not busy', maybe even more likely to say yes. And he's grasping for it too, "any random game" he just doesn't want to be alone because he just found out he's going to be alone very suddenly in a time when he should not really be alone at all, whether he knows that or not. He certainly doesn't want to be.

I see people often say that 'the worst thing someone can tell you is no'. They generally mean it in a positive way? I guess? I think Sun is at that point where, yes, one of the worst things you could say to him is no. So even an unenthusiastic 'I don't REALLY want to hang out with you' yes is better than a 'no'. Because a no means he'll be alone for sure, while a unenthused yes still means he won't be alone. Does this make sense? It feels clunky, did I explain this right?

Yeah the demeanor change from after asking Moon about the satellite, to finding out he has to leave for it, to finding out he's not leaving right away, to finding out Moon is going to hang out with him despite not sounding enthusiastic about it (because at least its something, you know?) was a trip.

I know Moon's probably stressed right now too, but the 'isn't there something you wanted to drag me along with' was unnecessarily hurtful.

I feel like we're slowly leaning back into past cycles with these two. Like, Moon not telling Sun about something big and important like that. Sun pushing down problems into something else. We'll see. It's just hints at it for now.

Sorry for the downer boo boo ending to the post ;-;

Maybe the next one will be a bit cheerier?

[northwest-cryptid]

Curious about the VRChat equality thing

Oh boy time to get into weird shit about how capitalism infects the brain through being able to benefit from it and how despite the stigma, even pirates and communists believe people deserve fair compensation for goods and labor but what is fair is an often debated topic.

So this is going to be a really long post if I'm actually being entirely honest, and as such I will give you a tl;dr up front, however I will say that if all you read is the tl;dr you're going to maybe understand about 15% of the overall situation on this and that's merely because there's no way to explain everything without giving a ton of context and information first and then going into dumb details about it all.

TL;DR essentially people took a model of a communist utopia, learned they could profit from it; and then capitalism took hold and is now destroying not only an entire application through basically micro dosing on micro-transactions, but also through creating extremely hefty barriers of entry to an already expensive hobby that once existed in a way that equalized people.

Now to actually get into the meat and potatoes of what I'm actually talking about here. If you've followed me for any amount of time you likely know the drill by now, I'm putting a "Keep Reading" here to save everyone's dashboards in case you don't already use the feature that automatically scrunches long posts since this is likely going to be pretty hefty as I'm fairly passionate about it and have a lot to say.

I ask that if you've made it this far, and actually clicked the keep reading button; that you stick with me and don't go skipping all over the place. I say this because I'm going to start off pretty boring and seemingly off topic but I promise this is all important for understanding my views on this topic; if you don't agree with me that's totally fine but I ask that you at least try to understand how I'm looking at this from my specific viewpoint.

Point 1 - We are all equal in the eyes of the Internet.

The internet, yea? It's kind of weird to talk about the internet because different people will see it as a different thing. Some of us may see it as nothing more than a collection of data that can be updated, called, and sent between a shared network all over the world. That alone is pretty cool, but others of us may see it as a visible extension of cyberspace. I'm somewhere in the middle myself, I feel as though people ask too much of cyberspace. While I won't get into it here, I have a lot of thoughts on the topic of things like "phantom sense" as VR becomes more of an accessible thing for people, I've found that specific subcultures begin to pop-up, and among them there are people who desperately want Virtual Reality to simply drop the "virtual" and become akin to meatspace.

Now if you're asking me, I personally think that much of the appeal of cyberspace comes specifically from the "cyber" part. Virtual Reality is inherently Virtual and there's nothing actually lesser or wrong about that. People gauge much of Virtual Reality AGAINST Physical Reality, which is dumb. They're both their own reality, why do we want them to be functionally identical, we could make use of so much of what Virtual Reality has to offer if we embrace that it's Virtual. Let's take a quick moment and think about that, what does it mean to be Virtual? To exist within a digital realm?

Well here's a thought experiment for you, let's say I take you and 9 other willing participants and put you all inside different rooms. In these rooms you have nothing but a computer and a desk. On that computer you can access a virtual chat room, there are no profiles, no images or avatars; you merely choose a name to represent yourself and are dropped into a chatroom with 9 other people.

How old are the other participants? Are they around your age group? Are you even aware of their age? Does it matter to you? Did it matter before I asked?

Following this line of thinking, let's look at some other features, are they all the same gender, or different genders? How tall are they? Do they come from a wealthy family? Do they have a job? Are they perhaps disabled at all, in any way? Do they make a lot of money if they do have a job?

I do ask these questions genuinely, so to make this little thought experiment easier to manage let's have you think of this; narrow the number from 10 participants to just 3, you're 1 of them so there are two other people here with you. You cannot physically see them, and everything from their usernames to their appearance is up to your personal interpretation. So I ask you to look over those questions and give them even a baseline answer, it doesn't need to be elaborate; you don't need to give it a lot of thought. You're not making a D&D character with a lengthy backstory. For anyone who said "I'm not doing that" I'll do it as well right here for you, you can ignore this if you wish to do this yourself; I do believe it's important to making my own.

The first other participant other than myself will be an older woman in her late 50s who works as a butcher, she lives a fairly average life; she has a roommate to help pay the bills as she is lower middle class. Even living in a fairly average home, renting no less; she has to save up for any purchases that aren't absolutely necessary for survival.

The other individual I am in this chatroom with is a younger nonbinary individual who claims to be 23, they don't currently have a job as they're studying and attending law school. They come from a wealthy family and while not rich; do enjoy a life as an upper middle class household. Despite their hefty schooling costs they're never short on money to pay for things they want.

Alright cool, now I know who I'm here with; and you know who you're here with, so here's the most important question to ask.

...Does any of that really matter here?

This isn't a deep philosophical conversation, it's a very simple question. Let me elaborate.

Does age define knowledge? Not really, it can help understand something better if you've spent a lot of time with a specific field of study, and yes our brains pick up knowledge better at certain age ranges, but overall it has no real merit over how well we can navigate something. If a 50 year old and a 20 year old are both passionate about learning how to model an avatar, script a code; or exist within a VR space they'll both be able to do so roughly just as well as the other. Sure we're all human and have our own quirks we work through, someone might pick up something far easier than someone else. However the capability to learn is always there.

Does money carry any weight in a digital world? Well, here in this chatroom no. It really doesn't. There's no pay to win system in a social setting like this. Having $1 to my name, or a million doesn't make a difference. I'm not able to see what computers everyone else has, perhaps someone has a really fancy, fast, nice computer; while I'm working with something a little more "run of the mill" but at the end of the day they both access the same internet data.

Things like money, age, physical ability, even social or economic standing; they have no real sway over the virtual. Not unless you account for third party outside influences.

Point 2 - But you know what I like more than materialistic things? Knowledge.

So now let's go back to a simpler time on the internet, when VR was still new and we all had to pay upwards of $200 - $300 and even sometimes $400 to strap an oversized projector to our face so we could experience what it's like to have a monitor not even inches from our face. Applications like VRChat were all the rage because most VR applications and games felt more like tech demos, people didn't know how to use the tech yet and most actual home VR headsets were development kits.

VRChat was fairly open source at the time, lending most of it's success to a community building assets, systems, and avatars for their own use within the application.

As with any good open source application a lot of the files and thus the understanding for how things worked were being shared around and people began to notice a pattern as with any form of labor.

Not everyone wanted to put in the time and effort to actually learn. In fact plenty of people who were purchasing VR headsets were fairly wealthy people, sure not everyone; some people got them as gifts or saved up money over the course of a long time; or they'd use large sum of money given during tax returns or holidays as a means to purchase a VR headset while they were on sale.

However yes, a lot of people had a lot of money sitting around and wouldn't mind throwing a couple bucks your way if you were willing to go through the trouble of making them an avatar, world; or asset.

Now, this isn't anything bad on the surface; but it poisoned the well and it began the conflict.

"So you're saying artists commissioned work is bad and it should all be free and artists should starve." Only as much as I'm saying we should piss on the poor. Which is to say, no I'm not saying that; but if you jumped on that train immediately I don't blame you for thinking I'm going there, but bear with me.

As time went on and we developed more and more for VRchat's main engine; we also developed tools like Udon; a scripting language made for VRChat specifically. The ways in which we could customize avatars, worlds, and even assets was ever changing and it seemed like it was only getting more and more complex.

So what happened? Did people provide tools, lessons; and understanding to those around them in hopes there were others who would pick up the knowledge and create brilliant things to continue the ever exponential progress?!

No. Well yes, but mostly no. See some people did in fact provide easy to follow tutorials! You can find plenty out there, at least for basic things; but many saw the chance to really make a point with this.

A point that they understood the system, and you did not.

A point that you were better off paying them for the things they know and you don't.

A point that you should never question them, and that if you fuck up it's your own fault and maybe next time you'll listen.

If you think I'm exaggerating you should consider yourself lucky to have not come face to face with the truly disgusting underbelly of asset sales.

See I don't mind selling goods and services; I am an artist myself and I believe fair compensation is important! If someone likes what you're selling and deems it a fair price that's great, that's a win win; everyone's happy.

However what if the person purchasing your wares doesn't understand their value?

Asset flipping is something we see a lot of, done entirely legally through fair use mind you. People will buy assets along with their commercial license, and then quickly and easily slap those assets onto an amalgamation of other cheap gimmicks only to sell the new model at a profit from it's component parts.

"But that's how things are sold Cryptid, what's so weird about that?"

Well, okay let's look at how sales in physical space works right?

If I buy a single banana, and that costs me $1; then to turn a profit I'll need to sell it for something like $1.25 this is literally just because once you buy my banana, I don't have any more bananas to sell.

So if I sell the banana for $1 I'm at a net neutral, I don't have the ability to generate any additional funds off the single banana I've bought. So let's say I buy 4, I sell each for 1.25 and all 4 sell, now I can buy an additional 1 and I've only made .25 cents.

Well shit, it looks like I need to hike the price by a decent margin if I'm actually going to make any sort of sustainable income from selling bananas right?

But what happens if we say, I have 1 banana that generates infinite bananas. I bought my infinite banana generator for $25 + Tax. Now I could say I want to sell my bananas for $30 because I had to pay $25 to get this one.

However, I can also make infinite bananas, and if my bananas are good quality; they should sell out; or at least sell a decent amount. So rather than pricing a single banana higher than the original price, I should logically sell my bananas a lot cheaper; let's say I sell them for a simple $1.25 same as before. Once I've sold about 20-ish bananas I'll have not only made my money back, but I'll likely have made a small bit of profit.

"But Cryptid, you could have made way more from selling even one single banana at $30! Why gamble on 20 people buying a banana instead of just selling the one!?"

Because if I sell my banana at $30, but you can buy an infinite banana generator for only $25, what's stopping you... wait... what's stopping you from-

No. Hold on you don't know how it works! You couldn't possibly use the banana generator like I can!

NO DON'T GO LOOKING AT THE SOURCE SALES, SURE I LEGALLY HAVE TO CREDIT THE BANANA GENERATOR BUT-

Listen to me it's a very difficult device to understand! You don't have the years of understanding I do! You should pay me instead! You'll only fuck it up! You'll WASTE YOUR MONEY if you buy it from the original creator!

IT'S ME BOY THE PS5!-

Ahem, sorry I got a little sidetracked there. My point with all of this is how digital sales work far differently given that I'm not actually giving up any resources when I make a sale, the product is infinite; and I could sell it over and over again. So selling it for less than it's component parts is essentially saving my buyers some money over buying each individual part and putting it together themselves. I save them time as well since I'd likely have put together all the shaders, blend trees for emotes, menus and submenus for toggles- oh no... hold on why is that still pink? OH MOTHERFUC-

Point 3 - Missing and Outdated scripts, assets, shaders, and best of all fear mongering!

See a big part of this whole sales concept for virtual good comes from the idea that if I sell you an avatar, world, or asset; I'm selling you a completed product. Something I devoted my time and expertise to that you may not have to devote to it. So then what happens when I no longer allow you to contact me for support, and half the product is missing? Well there's no refund policy on the website I use so uh, tough.

This is unfortunately very common. Outdated scripts never being updated while assets still remain up for sale with scripts in them that will absolutely DESTROY your project unless you specifically dedicate time to going through your files with not only an understanding of what each file controls, but also the surgical precision to remove the files in such a way that doesn't accidentally trigger a chain reaction.

Because believe it or not, most of the avatars, worlds, and assets for sale are not ACTUALLY quality made models.

"But Cryptid, the artist sets the price and the consumer deems it fair when they purchase the goods!"

Correct! However, at what point do we argue for false advertisement?

Not only are many of the avatars, worlds; and assets for sale priced at insane prices (we're talking upwards up $150 - $460 for some) but most of these avatars, worlds, and assets do not disclose important information about their products that consumers should be allowed to know prior to purchase. Like how in some cases a file is so big that it can take more than 2 real life days of uninterrupted loading and then still crash unity. Enjoy your $460 world map that doesn't have active support, says you're shit out of luck if you fuck up importing it at all; and doesn't actually load because don't forget, there's no refund policy.

So let's say an avatar, world, or asset DOES actually import correctly.

Once you get through all the fear mongering about how you need to import the model, and no I'm not joking; people are openly lying in their readme files to scare people into following useless instructions.

i.e according to one readme if you import the shaders after the avatar your entire project will become corrupt beyond saving and you'll need to restart from scratch. In reality shaders automatically update if a model calls for them; so importing the shader at any point would simply just update the model to use the correct shaders. In that same vein let's address "YOU NEED TO START A NEW PROJECT, DO NOT IMPORT THIS AVATAR INTO AN EXISTING PROJECT OR IT WILL FUCK UP AND I WILL NOT HELP YOU" guess what? I tested it, like any other avatar/model importing the unity package at any point in the project just, you know; imports it.

I have also heard stories of people saying there are scripts in the unity files that can corrupt your computer's core files if you don't follow their instructions SPECIFICALLY, which A. isn't true; and B. why are you selling what you basically call a potential trojan?

So anyways, once you get through all the fear mongering about how you clearly can't do anything on your own (literally one of the readmes had a link to visit the site that tells you how to log into your account. For reference/context you're not even allowed to get to this point and upload an avatar/world until you've logged into VRChat and been an active user for about a week. They talk down to you and treat you like you're stupid because they rely on you NEEDING them to tell you exactly how to navigate this "super scary" application otherwise you wouldn't pay them upwards of $80 for a model they basically took from other people and used a plugin to glue together.) You can now look over your avatar/world, since you've managed to do the unthinkable and import a unity asset pack correctly!

Not all assets are made equal, and I think it's very important to understand that while yes the artist and consumer enter into an agreement over price that they both deem fair; it's important to understand how capitalism comes in many forms.

In this case I've noticed that Gumroad recycles almost all of their assets from other people on the website, and their models are extremely sub par when you compare them with far cheaper models on Booth. While some Gumroad shops do link back to their Booth counterparts, a lot seem to want this to remain a eldritch knowledge.

So on the off chance everything just works, you're good to go; congratulations I genuinely hope you enjoy your likely overpriced avatar because ultimately that's what matters, if you're happy with what you paid for then there's no harm done.

However in more cases than I care to admit, the readme will tell you to go buy various other plugins and asset packs to make the thing you just bought work.

Now as an example of how to do this right, and it's still shitty; but at least I think it's done right. There's a fishing system for sale that directly mentions in it's website based description that you'll need two other asset packs, those both being linked. Here's the hard part to justify though, for the system itself is about $23 after conversion, the other two asset packs are respectively $50 and $10, so in total something you thought would only be $23 is about $83 if you want it to actually be functional.

Now again in that case everything is listed on the website clear as day and this is at least generally how I see things being listed which is okay with me. However I've seen more cases than I care to admit where this information is advertised as "this avatar has XYZ" and then in the readme says "you'll need to purchase XYZ from [User] to get the XYZ system working!" So now we have false advertisement AND hidden fees?!

When avatars can cost more than $250 and not be a unique model of your own OC or something commissioned and still be missing additional features, sometimes shaders; which require a monthly patreon subscription to access. Only to then see that the avatar/world/asset comes with a ton of stipulations and regulations of use? It's all very hard to figure out what "fair" is anymore.

It may just be my opinion, but when someone sells me something I expect it to be a complete thing that I then own, not something I'm not "legally allowed to edit" or that isn't entirely completed and that I'd need to go purchase additional things for.

Important reminder here, all of this is for a VR application where you just kinda vibe and hang out in a virtual space. People are happy to pay expensive prices for good quality, but few people are willing to deliver good quality; fewer without a ton of rules and restrictions.

Literally not but a week ago my partner was looking at an avatar that specifically said VIEWING the blend shapes was "breaking terms of service" so that's cool. For the record blend shapes are literally just adjustable values most people use for editing an avatar without needing to mess with the mesh. It allows you to hide parts of the avatar so that clothing will fit over the mesh without clipping, or lets you easily adjust face shape to better manage your expressions or facial features.

Can we also quickly touch on the fact that I was helping a friend edit something on their avatar, and found out that the person they bought it from had positioned an entire 3D watermark of their username inside the head of the model which;

they bought the base from someone else. they bought the clothing from someone else. they bought the gimmicks and additional features from someone else. All they did was actually slap it all together.

"Yea but that takes effort" no it really doesn't see that's the thing about Avatar creation, the more you know the less any of this makes sense!

There's a plugin called Modular Avatar, it basically does all the work for you, all you have to do is select the clothing, hair, whatever you want to add to your model; right click it and select modular avatar's "setup outfit" button. It then manages all the bones for you!

This person put more effort into branding the model than they put into putting the avatar together!

I know this because while working on adding one thing to the model, one of it's core outdated scripts fucked up and caused a bunch of issues that we managed to work around by literally never allowing the avatar to enter play mode. Which makes it significantly harder to work with, so we're using two variations of the same project open at the same time, one of which is entirely fucked; but lets us nab values from the avatar while it's in play mode; the other can never enter play mode and must continue to contain a broken and outdated script; because removing it causes the blendshapes to entirely fuck up.

This would be like if I went to google images, found a bunch of pictures of anime characters; slapped one of their heads on another ones body, took another one's hair and slapped it over top, poorly merged all the layers together and then aggressively plastered my signature on it while also totally admitting where I got all the art.

Now I do admit there's a little bit of weird grey area here, see no one is commissioning these avatars; they're just up for sale. So someone who buys it is saying they feel like purchase of this avatar as it is, is entirely fair for the price. Whether or not that's true is besides the point because you could argue that the buyer wasn't forced to pay for something if they didn't want it.

But like, let's do a quick simulation...

Hi welcome to my Gumroad shop, $30 please.

What do you mean you do not want... uh... Shipiku my totally original avatar I made (with assets from other creators) for like $30?! HE HAS GIMMICKS.

...Okay yea looking at that image is physically painful to me, I have created something truly horrific. We should move on, to my favorite part of all of this which is-

Point 4 - The Eroticism Elitist-ism of the Machine!

With the Oculus Quest being a more budget friendly VR Headset for people to pick up more and more people got into VR and thus VRChat by extension. So how did VRChat respond? By making the Unplugged Quest basically the standard for "good quality" which means that a ton of worlds and avatars just won't be accessible to the VR equivalent of taping a chromebook to your face; and yet that will be the new norm. This created a pretty sizable divide in how things function. Now you have a camp of people who refuse to even permit entry to their private worlds unless your avatar is rated "good" because of "performance issues" but why would they care about cramming so many people into their world?

Oh... it's because they are monetizing access. Yea, of course they want everyone to have access to their world, the only way to get in is to know someone who's already in, or sleuth around until you find their discord; then you need to boost their discord and more often than not pay either micro-transactions inside VRChat (because that's a thing now) or pay directly through patreon/donations to the world creator.

On the other hand you have some creators who outright refuse to let quest users access their world. Even though technically the world is optimized enough that a quest user COULD access the world, there are scripts that have been implemented into various worlds that are outright hostile towards quest users, where if it detects you're using a oculus quest headset that isn't plugged into a computer; you'll essentially not be able to interact with the world. There are many ways this is accomplished, in some cases it's literally just having hostile entities that cause you to constantly respawn, other times it's more directly just moving your spawn point to a box way off the map so you're effectively locked behind a prison you can't respawn out of.

As you can imagine there's a good bit of elitism on both sides. Which yes, is just another way people are gatekeeping VR behind a paywall. Not only do you need an expensive headset, but you better buy "the right one" not to mention you'll likely want to/need to pick up full body tracking, and pay a considerable entry fee or upkeep fee to a good handful of private worlds.

"but Cryptid, people are allowed to charge for access to things they create, that's just business!" Yea I'm not saying it's not allowed, I'm saying it's shitty.

I don't insert these blurbs as though I feel like you, the reader; are ALWAYS aggressively saying these things while reading my post. I put these here because they're things I've been told before, and they're things I want to address. So please understand that these aren't hypothetical cases of arguments in my head; nor are they meant to project any personality onto you.

That in mind, let's address this; I'm not saying people aren't allowed to seek capital investment in their hobbies. Obviously as a streamer I would love if people donated to me. However this is more akin to locking my streams behind a paywall, again; totally legal and totally allowed but still kind of a dick move. Why do I have so much problem with it? Well let me explain it this way

I work at an escape room, my CEO once asked my manager what the difference between a group of 7 and a group of 2 was. My manager confidently responded "we make more money from a group of 7" to which the CEO corrected him "no, there is no difference. We do not use any more or less resources, we don't take more time to reset the room; there is no difference." We have also been asked if a group of 2, and a group of 7 come in at the same time; who do we prioritize? The answer? Whoever booked first.

What's the core concept here? Well it's a simple ideology, if we don't use any resources hosting a group, there is no difference between groups; if someone took the time to book with us earlier, we see to them earlier. It's basic logic that we take into account the care that someone has put into being here, and also what we lose in providing them the service of our escape room.

So let's apply this to a private VRChat world.

Remember, VRChat hosts these servers, so I'm not paying any upkeep costs for having an active world. Considering how scripts and programming work I have little need to pay someone to monitor or moderate my world; especially considering I do not take responsibility for the acts of those who visit my world.

Then what is the difference between a private and a public instance of my world?

Well, I'll tell you because there actually IS a difference here.

See private worlds have two very special properties.

Public display, whether streamed to an audience or done in a public world; of any NSFW imagery or behavior will result in a ban. The important take away here is if this is done in PUBLIC. Private worlds and instances are exempt from this. VRChat doesn't care what you do in private as long as it's not being streamed publicly.

Likewise, Private worlds require access to be granted via someone already in the world, and the only people who can access the private world are it's creators. Meaning that if someone wants into my world they HAVE to go through me. If I make it public, then anyone is allowed to access the world, and even host their own private instances of my world. There's one more thing about this that people don't like but we'll get into that a bit later because that's going to be a pretty lengthy discussion.

So what IS the difference? Is it just that you can partake in NSFW shit in a private world? Well, kind of; but it's more that second point that's important.

People understand that VRChat as a whole is a very, let's just say passionate place when it comes to ERP. I have no judgement on the topic, but I think the exploitation of it is a bit unnecessary. By which I mean the hosting of private worlds designed specifically to be clubs, sex parties, or otherwise exclusive NSFW events that people must pay to access. Now obviously any NSFW world is going to be private, but not all require the use of financial compensation to access.

If you're wondering how I know all this:

A. I frequent NSFW communities, my side gig is literally adult animation. Who cares. B. I have a lot of friends who participate in that sort of thing, I personally live with my partner and while I do understand the appeal of that sort of thing, it doesn't really interest me.

Regardless, it's not exclusive to NSFW worlds, more so that those are the ones I've seen asking extreme prices.

More often than not it's done through patreon, you are given a special role in a discord or you're given access to secret worlds if you pay enough monthly, with some worlds stating that for $100+ a month you can have your picture in the world. Yes, a picture; of your avatar; in an exclusive paywalled world... for $100.

Again I know this goes back to "if the consumer and the seller deem it fair blah blah blah" but if you're still arguing that, you're missing the grander point here.

If that's the case allow me a moment to try to make sense of a summary:

the internet is a place where we leave behind any inequality; a place where you and I, no matter our background, financial situations; or social standing, are equals. We bear no difference in status; only in interests. That is, unless I have access to parts of the internet you do not.

So you pay $499.99 for a headset, congratulations; you had to get a cheaper model because it's what you could afford. Now you're the target of much harassment and general dislike as you bought "the wrong headset" without consideration for how you'd be treated for it. You can't access much of the virtual net, so you decide to spend even more money to buy a few accessories; a cable that will link you directly to your computer for example (or better wifi if you use the wifi link, which yes; good internet also costs money and isn't available to everyone depending on their location. Again it's inequality.)

Now you blend in, you appear to be a PC user like anyone else, congratulations you now have access to almost just about everything, except you don't. You try to join me in a world only to see I'm in a "private instance" and my social obligations say I'm not allowed to answer your invitation request because you didn't pay to be here. I send you a discord link, it's to some random group you've never heard of, you need to join this if you want access to this one world. You can live without it, so you don't click it.

The next day you see I'm again, in a private world. You go to a few public worlds and find they're mostly populated by younger children, random people who don't want to talk to you; and most only have 1 - 2 people, with most instances of even the popular worlds being set to private. So what do you do? You ask to join me, and I again; send you a different link this time. A patreon link, that states you can gain access to the world I'm in for $10 a month, payment up front; and then you'll need to get approved through a discord.

Oh but you can't show up like this, your avatar quality is "poor" you'll need to optimize that. Looking it up online most people say to buy something off Gumroad or Booth, so you look; most avatars are extremely sexualized; the ones you can find aren't "good" quality nor are they optimized and some are outdated by a few years.

Eventually you find one that's not horrible; it's an extra $25. At this point you're paying the following, grabbing these numbers directly from the internet mind you:

$499.99 for a headset. $79.99 for a link cable (it doesn't even charge the headset) $24.99 for an avatar that is allowed on the world. $10 a month for access to the world. Oh but wait, you're not assured a slot in the private world; it can only support up to 30 people per instance and if you want to reserve a spot you need to boost the discord server, so let's tack on nitro as well, and extra $9.99 per month.

Even if you only do these as a one time payment to access this world once. Here's what you're out, in total: $624.96 before even factoring in taxes.

All of this, so you can experience a few hours of hanging out with a friend. Well, was it worth it? Let's see;

In America, the average hourly wage (not minimum, average) across all 50 states is $29.81 as of December 2020. You can look that up if you'd like I found this number via Indeed so grain of salt and all that.

But let's go ahead and say it's $30 an hour. Now for the record, most people I know work for far less, but we're not concerning ourselves with minimum wage just yet, but we will.

So if you're making $30 an hour, and you need to reach a total of (again rounding to be fair here) $625 and we're not accounting for tax eating half your pay, we're looking at:

((30 an hour * 8 hours per day) * 5 days a week)

or 240*5 = $1200 a week.

Well hey that's not so bad! You make enough in a WEEK to almost buy this all twice o-oh no. I didn't think about cost of living...

Well no this is fine let's just check the average rent!

A quick internet search will tell us "The average rent for an apartment in the U.S. is $1,718."

Well... okay, that sucks. How much is gas right now? Right okay well Forbes says "today's average price of gas in the U.S. is $3.47 per gallon" and I need about 30 gallons per tank, and I need to get gas about twice a month, I live about 15 minutes from my work and I drive a fairly fuel efficient car but that's still roughly $208 I'm spending on gas each month.

What about groceries? Again a quick search says "on average, Americans spent $779 per month on food in 2022" which means we're looking at, without even factoring in utilities, taxes, or ANY leisure activities a grand total of roughly $2,705 per month?!

This mind you, is the AVERAGE. We're low balling some of those prices and not even caring about taxes, fees, and utilities.

But hey it's okay we're making 1,200 per week! So we take that number and multiply it by 4! That means before taxes we're left with 4,800!

Hey speaking of, how does that work? Let's do another average!

Well it turns out because of how taxes work averages are hard, but I'm seeing that about 13.3% is a safe bet, so let's go with that.

13.3% of 4800 = 0.133 × 4800 = 638.4

okay, that's not TOO bad right? That leaves us with 4161.6 and then we can pay the monthly costs which leaves us with $1,456.6

Alright so now we can afford rent, gas, groceries, taxes, the works! Plus we have enough left over to pay for our fancy headset, an avatar, and access to a world, plus nitro and... jesus that's a lot isn't it?

What are we left with after all of this? $831.64

I sure hope you don't have any student loans, no credit card payments; no other obligations.

You're left with less money for the month than you made in a day of work.

"Okay sure, but the bulk of that comes from the headset!" Correct again!

One of the cheaper headsets available at that!

But did you notice that the average person would only be able to scrape by if they went out of their way to purchase something and jump through all these hoops? All for what? Paying an extra roughly $45 (20 of which renews every month) for basic access to the thing they bought the $500 headset for? That's considering the avatar you bought was actually only $25, actually still functional; and has everything included with it.

I won't make us run all the numbers again, but I want you to consider that minimum wage in America is $7.25 or just $290 before tax PER WEEK.

Let's contextualize that...

an avatar that costs $25? That's 3.44 hours. $10 access to patreon? 1.37 Tack on another 1.37 for nitro boosting.

Total cost for that $45? 6.18 hours of work before tax.

Now if you're lucky enough to have a full time job, that's not TOO bad; but this is also just for one singular world. For one singular avatar.

Remember, the cost of living stays the same; the price of gas doesn't change just because you don't get paid as much as the guy at the pump over from yours.

Working at minimum wage you'll make $1,160 a month again; before taxes. That's not even enough to cover the average cost of rent.

So if you don't make enough money to splurge on patreon and discord access, I guess you're just going to have to stick to public lobbies.

Again, it's possible; and it's legal, and that's all fine and whatever.

It's not about whether you CAN; it's about whether you should HAVE TO.

Not only is it true that not everyone can, but I genuinely don't believe anyone should have to.

It's not that I don't believe people should be paid for their hard work, or that some work doesn't "deserve compensation" rather I believe equality extends to things like paywalls.

There have been studies that prove that piracy drops the second people can afford a product. Using a piracy as a "try before you buy" format is one of the most popular; and we see this being so prevalent because for so many people, money is just so tight they can't afford the luxury of leisure activities.

Technically speaking you can access VRChat without the need for a VR Headset, however most worlds are designed around the headset and hand controls. Furthermore, arbitrary rules being held by people with private worlds allow creators to literally make the demand that you use a VR Headset and in some cases you'll not be allowed in the main instance of a private event unless you have full body tracking; which can cost upwards from $300+

Which yes, does in fact mean that gatekeeping doesn't just stop at the paywall, it extends to the disabled.

Imagine if you will, being turned away from a private event that you paid money to go to; just because of the fact you happen to be in a wheelchair and not have the ability to use leg tracking. You love to see ableism slipping into "quality control" don't ya?

Okay so what all do we know now? Let's quickly recap before I get to my last point because boy is this one gonna be a doozy and I want to make sure we're all on the same page before I break that ice and dive into that iceberg never to be heard from again.

For starters we understand that, as far as the internet is concerned; we're all equals. Money, social standing; even your background don't really mean anything here. You're an identity you put forward, allowed to be whoever and whatever you want. Chatrooms, forums, blogs, video games; these things DO but shouldn't; gatekeep their communities by putting up paywalls quite often. This is generally frowned upon more often than it's not, even when it's understood.

We know even when a company states they need to charge membership for the sake of keeping a game running or keeping a website up; we still frown upon the idea of a company gatekeeping content or usability behind a paywall. Yet in spaces like VRChat this gatekeeping is often disguised behind the idea of fair market trading and "supporting indie developers" which in some cases, is actually what's going on, and in others is sleazy cover from the likes of people like me who will point out when putting up a paywall and making demands of your users is, while totally legal and technically allowed; STILL just as shitty.

Which brings us to our next point, which is that even among that market; we have extremely overpriced and broken avatars, worlds, and assets; many of which don't come as a complete package requiring you to obtain other goods and services from other creators to get them working; most of what you can find is a jumbled mess of other people's stuff, haphazardly thrown together and thrown at you for a quick buck, a typically overpriced quick buck at that. With extremely predatory fear mongering designed to keep you from exploring unity and the VRChat Creator Companion to possibly find out how to do things yourself, because remember that this is all absolutely just wizard magic and if you fuck it up your computer will catch on fire and open a portal to hell and then slenderman will come out and Jeff the kill you! Or... you might need to restart unity or something, yea that's more likely... Oh and speaking of actually using VRChat!

Most of the actual populated worlds are hidden behind discords, patreons; or other paywalls. With most public worlds including additional features only available via patreon or by purchasing a subscription through in app micro-transactions. With costs for something as simple as having your picture presented in a world costing as much as $100 per month in same cases. If you attempt to go the route of using the non-VR app you'll likely face elitist gatekeeping where map creators do not want "ugly default posing avatars" in their private worlds they charge people to get into, so you'll still not be let in unless you buy a proper headset, and no; they don't mean the cheap ones, unless you're willing to purchase an additional attachment to make it function just like the $1,000 alternatives. Even then you may STILL be kept from the "main" instance if you don't have additional $300+ full body tracking in some cases.

So then, what do you do?

If you want to enjoy the absolute brilliance of VR in the modern era, if you want to see what it's like and experience it before capitalism chokes even more life out of it where are you to turn?

Point 5 - AHOY! WE BE COMMUNIST PIE RATERS ON THIS HERE INTERNET, TAKE YOUR CAPITALISTIC ASS BACK TO YOUR 9-5!

I have never seen such hatred and fear for anything like I have for piracy in the VRChat community.

Now this might largely stem from the idea of "rippers" people who literally rip assets live, this is why a lot of people won't put their worlds up for the public. Because they fear someone will come along and just reupload their world; and I think that's really silly because if you pay attention, it happens and it doesn't change anything because the people who are actually going to publicly available worlds continue to access the same publicly available worlds they've been going to, rather than reuploads. Most people use favorites lists or find a world through a creator, so reuploading the world will only really fool maybe a small handful of new first time users into maybe actually spending some money on a micro-transaction for a reuploaded world. Which can easily be remedied by getting rid of micro-transactions and instead maybe relying on a direct donation system if anything.

People are very up in arms about people ripping avatars and assets; and the reasons for this branch from "that's stealing" to "it's a violation of someone's personal identity!" Which sure, I can understand that somewhat.

So here's the other thing to consider, the majority of models; including "unique models" are actually just pretty simple edits or whatever of existing models.

You may not believe me, so here's a quick example:

Popular Vtuber and Twitch personality Filian!

Great model, absolutely stellar work on this one; and I am not joking, I'm not being sarcastic. Yea, I love Jingo's work... what? You thought Filian made that herself? Oh no wait you likely thought it was commissioned right? Like she had this made specific for her?

Nah she's using a Rindo base!

AND THAT'S NOT A BAD THING!

JINGO is a great avatar maker, and Filian has done some minor edits to the $46 avatar:

Oh huh? Yea no you heard me correctly, Rindo is only $46 USD.

She comes with a few toggles for outfits, she has plenty of blendshapes (and JINGO won't yell at you for adjusting them), she even comes with her own custom emojis and voice clips! Really easy to edit features and tons of clothing that is very affordable you can easily set up using modular avatar.

If you're not a fan of her base, you could use a Moe, or maybe a Selestia base fits you better, or a Kikyo; oh you want a male avatar? Try Minase he's pretty good as a base, he's the male counterpart of the female base; Shinra! All of these base models come complete with everything you need baked right in, or if they do need a shader; it's entirely free for download and the link is provided; the prices for these? Roughly range around $50 entirely affordable, easily editable; you can make your own entirely unique avatar right now using any of these as a base.

"Cryptid I thought you were talking about Rippers! Where's the PIRACY!"

Oh well, do you remember what I said before? When you make something affordable people will still buy it. There's a ton of places where these models are available for download whether or not you wish to buy them from their proper respective shops. However most people I've spoken to admit they go back and purchase the base after making their model with it because "it's affordable, a fair price for what you're getting; and the bases are very good quality!" Couldn't agree more.

But I also say this because if we humor the idea that someone rips Filian's avatar, what do they really get? They get a free Rindo with minor changes. They didn't hurt Filian, they hurt JINGO if anything; and even then "piracy is a victimless crime" applies here as well.

I will say I don't really endorse the idea of ripping things live, but the idea that live ripping is any different than piracy is also a little silly if I'm being honest.

When you build a 10 foot paywall to entry, people are going to build an 11 foot ripping tool to get over it. That IS the internet, and I wouldn't care if there wasn't such a big stink about rippers and piracy in general when it came to VRChat.

There's this idea that if you pirate something you're stealing from a small indie creator uwu and that's bad because now they can afford to eat because you were greedy! Or this concept that by pirating something and using it on your avatar, in a world; even if they'll never know, even if you're only using the models privately, you have in some way violated their privacy and commit identity theft.

As someone who has actually been the victim of identity theft multiple times, let me tell you right now, unless someone uses my avatar to specifically open another 5 Verizon accounts in my name I don't really care.

This is the only time in my life I've seen the internet HATE piracy so fervently and it made me wonder why; until I recognized that the loudest people were in the readmes of those gumroad avatars, the loudest voices weren't the creators of popular bases or models like Rindo, Kikyo, or Selestia; they were people on gumroad who fear monger and spread this message that "if you didn't pay for this avatar I will block you from my discord, ban you from ever accessing my world, and you'll never be able to buy from me again!" Like okay man I'll just go directly to the source you buy everything from get over yourself, guess I won't give you money for another overpriced avatar with awful optimization then.

When I listen to the way people talk about piracy in VRChat it's never seen as a victimless crime, it's never seen as being a normal thing the internet does, it's seen as a vile, evil; horrible soulless act of devilish greed! But they all share a common word that being "my" or "your" when people talk about it they say "yea rippers will reupload YOUR world without any care" or "yea someone took MY asset and reuploaded it on a file sharing site"

It's personal.

"Okay what about you Cryptid wouldn't you be mad if-" No.

Let me make this abundantly clear, if I ever made something for VRChat, an avatar, a world, whatever. I don't care what it is; if I made something and I put it out there on a site for like $5 and then I saw it on a website with someone saying "hey does anyone have this? I want it buy I can't afford it/don't want to pay for it." I am NOT fucking with you, I would simply answer the post myself and say "yea here ya go, if you need any help getting it set up let me know; I made it. If you ever feel like tossing me a donation or tip I'd appreciate it but don't worry if you can't afford it."

BECAUSE THAT'S COMMUNISM BAY-BEE.

I have, in the past; and even now, benefit from piracy. I'm pretty sure most people have. The only way I will ever listen to someone tell me piracy is wrong and bad and evil, is if they have literally NEVER benefit from any form of piracy, communism, or sharing of files and information; and even then I will simply understand that their opinion comes from a place of privilege.

I don't at all find it surprising that most of the people complaining about rippers and pirates come from:

Countries with good economies where they can actually afford shit (such as Norway)

Sites where they're allowed to sell the models at an extreme premium and offer no refund policy.

And that my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg of shit that goes on in Virtual Reality spaces regarding paywalling; gatekeeping, and general capitalistic bullshit.

Remember, piracy is all well and good when it benefits me, but if you want to take what I'm selling for significantly too much money, you're a soulless vile creature and I will make sure everyone knows it!

^ That's sarcasm if anyone out there has the "piss on the poor" reading comprehension.

I'm going to go eat a burger and touch grass.

[sleepingxawake]

THE ROGUES - DJ POP UP 11/21 @ 10:30p EST

18+ // ROGUES.7385

11p - Sleeping Awake

12a - Neo Absolution

Venue TBD

[laharlthecreator]

So where have I been for the past month.

Just a bit of a quick update of where I been for about a month now since I have not been creating stuff in Garry's Mod, MMD or Koikatsu even even though I have a few ideas I want to hammer out but I don't really have the time at the moment thanks to work and also last few weekends REALLY getting into VRChat with friends who are on school break and discovering the world of Paid Avatars.

But also, I finally got the last part of my SMG4 PuzzleVision order from a few months back. Mr. Puzzles himself!

Will say if you order him for your own collection you may need to fix his screen a bit since I noticed with others in the SMG4 community who ordered him and got him before me his screen will be a bit off when you open his package he comes in.

It's easy to fix if his screen is a bit popped out of place since it's the same material his keychain uses just a bit more bendable so you can slide it around inside his head to make it look a bit more flush with his head.

Would not be surprised if Luke & Kevin do a refresh of him in the next year as Glitch Pro has been doing with the Murder Drones merch every few months since the start of this year Mr. Puzzles will have a stitched-on face of his default look or this face that quite a few people like of him doing.

Hanging out with some friends a few weeks back in VRC since they are on break from school for the next few months. I'm the Alastor FYI.

Also earlier today I maaaayyy have had a crap time at work because I had to put up with an insufferable Commander who I directly respond to overall for the past few nights now so I went and bought (maybe) one of the last Valve Index's that Valve is going to more then likely make to chear me up a bit because Project Decard AKA Index 2 maybe showing up later this Fall more then likely around before or after Meta showing off their cheaper Quest 3 that everybody knows is a thing for quite sometime now.

So yeah, can't wait for that to show up as my wired VR rig. I already use a Meta Quest 3 but I'm already on my 3rd one 3 months in now because fun fact and I did not know this right away but I had my suspicions after the first one broke a month in and never really started putting 2 and 2 together until the 2nd one broke 2 months later over 2 weeks ago now that working out in VR progressively overtime like doing cardio workouts may cause sweat to REALLY get into the HMD overtime and cause the Quest 3 to brick itself.

Anyways that's what I been up to for the past month now: Somewhat crippling VRChat addiction/VR gaming and work overall. I think maybe this weekend coming for me (this Tuesday coming up after I hit the gym beforehand) I will make something in Garry's Mod and MMD that I been thinking for the past week on doing.

Later!

[thesockghost]

ANTI MATTER BIO (no I am not calling it negative star power, it’s basically the same thing and it sounds better)

Name: anti matter

Pronouns: pla/gue

Personally: destruction

Hobbies: death, Genozide, decay, destruction, light reading on the weekends, death

Power: oh boy you won’t believe me when I say this, but it’s the power of destruction

The anti matter is the main threat to the astral bodies and the whole universe in general, what more can I say?……..a few more things actually, I wouldn’t make a bio for it if that’s really all there was-

For characters on this side of the coin, we’ve got 2 main people so far as of writing this: Cetus and Rez.

All we know about these two so far is that Cetus is Rez’s master of some sorts, and they both really love their jobs. They both love nothing more than seeing the universe and lives alike rot away. So we’re probably going to get some bonkers self insert erotic fan-fiction when and if they get more screen time-

Rez’s job is to start some sort of infection on planets, and all we really know about that is that it needs a catalyst to start, and it causes people to get violent with one another and the planet to decay. And somehow that ends up affecting the astrals, so they have to send someone to go blow the planet up if the infection gets too far. (EP: ‘A Face in The Void in VRChat’)

When the antimatter starts to take over someone, they will gain physical mutations, such as and I quote: “their body could become more like a skeleton, generally purple accents, things like that” (EP: ‘Lunar Tells Gemini EVERYTHING That Has Changed! in VRChat’)

If someone uses antimatter for too long, they will be completely possessed by it and be turned into basically nothing but an empty husk to do its bidding.

And for a quick recap on wither storms, they are basically a bunch of antimatter that occasionally pops up, for example: we have Eternis, from the episode ‘Lunar's REAL TRAINING BEGINS in Minecraft!’

And finally once a universe is at the end of its lifetime and too much antimatter piles up to stop, a huge wither storm will come from some sort of space rift, and consume everything in the universe until nothing, not even antimatter remains.

BACK TO MAIN POST



[toast1862]

i've managed to play vrchat for 250 hours basically alone-- i have a friend that pops in on me occasionally, but he has his own group he prefers to be with-- because i don't actually like socializing much. or i have very low tolerance for it, i guess. i'll sometimes go on a streak where i talk to people for like 3 days and it's so much fun. but then i'll go silent. i can entertain myself for hours bouncing around a virtual k-mart and then freeze up looking at a discord chat. idk. just how it is. but i'm kind of interested in a sort of alone-in-public situation so i kind of want to go vrchat clubbing. i've seen people complaining on reddit that they go to vr clubs and nobody wants to talk to them, they're just busy dancing and that sounds great, very interested in that