It took me over a week of all my nights and free time trying to put together a good petite fairy avatar to show you I have wings for them and Dinkies too! Some of that time was unfortunately also spent dealing with an infringement of my Teasel Fairy Wings from a prominent Dinkie creator at Fantasy Faire. Read on for more.
Petites aren’t as common on the grid these days, and creators like Yabusaka, who also made the bodies for the Fallen Gods petite avatars, seem to have disappeared along with some of the brands that made clothing for them. That made it tougher to put together a cute look for them, but Dinkies and outfits for them are everywhere!
I got myself a pink cat body and easily found this ridiculously adorable ‘Watermelly’ outfit from Micachan Store ( http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Melloona/43/232/64 ) to go with my Titania Watermelon ‘Fruit Fairy’ wings at Melloona, where I couldn’t resist taking photos near the watermelon juice pool.
It’s like these wings and that region were made for each other, and I almost ended up with my Fantasy Faire store there.
Since the fair has been extended to midnight on the 13th, you still have today and tomorrow to shop! If you’d like to try my fairy wings, here’s my Fantasy Faire LM:
https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Amon%20Galadrann/52/25/82
Back to my quest to create a cute petite fairy avatar.
I decided on the Yabusaka 3 Petite female body, which comes ‘Omega ready’, an ancient (sort of) applier method of putting on skins and system clothing that was in use before all the bodies started using BOM and providing their own appliers for creators to use.
There’s actually a Universal BOM Converter that works with Omega Ready bodies so that we can use BOM skins and system clothes on bodies like the Yabusaka petite, so I got that as well as an eye alpha which didn’t come with the Yabusaka body. If everything looks fine except you have huge bug eyes, you need to wear that eye alpha.
It took me a minute to figure out how to use the appliers and BOM converter since there wasn’t much instruction in either one, but what I figured out is you wear / ‘add’ both the Skin Applier (or whatever layer you need to add to) and BOM Converter to your HUD, and click on both.
If your body is all red, that probably means you need to remove the body alpha.
For the head, you’ll need to use a system skin that includes it and uses the old SL UV map or it will look wrong & upside down, so all those EVOX head skins won’t work.
But some of those ancient system skins will, as will the head skins for Genus or any head skin that uses the original SL UV map.
You don’t need the clothing layer mesh that comes with the Yabusaka body for putting on skins or makeup, but you do if you want to add system / BOM tattoo layers or clothes with the clothing applier. For that, it seems you need to wear the clothing & makeup HUD that comes with the body, and to click on all the layer buttons so the BOM layers show.
Some clothing layers get wonky in certain body areas like the hips, so there’s no guarantee they’ll all work flawlessly but it sure gives us a lot more options for customizing a Petite fairy avie!
Bare Rose still sells some clothing for Petites, although for some strange reason their perms are no copy, and WishBox still has some nice Petites items that do have copy permissions. Wasabi Pills on Marketplace has some longer styles from some years ago, and newer short styles that are unrigged & resizeable.
I may come back with a list or new post with more sources for shopping when I have more time. Let me know if you’d like that.
Discovery of my Teasel Fairy Wings infringed
Unfortunately, the reduction in available items for petites was not the only issue delaying my progress.
After a kind soul showed me the newer Ruth petite body & head by Jinx early on, and gave me some suggestions for creators making clothes for them such as Isaura Simons, I went shopping.
I was having trouble getting the Jinx head to look right so I’m glad I got it for only $50L at faire & the body was free there which is also nice because there are so few brands making outfits for them. There are enough differences between that one and the Yabusaka 3 Petite bodies that most of the older petite outfits I found didn’t fit the Ruth body right.
Then, after finding the Jinx Facebook group & asking where I could find more outfits & hair for petites, I was invited to the Petites Discord where I was told I may find some of that info.
That’s when I saw the infringement of my Teasel wings. Right there in the shopping channel, someone posted a video of Isaura’s Petite Goth Fairy outfit which made it easier to see the details and that my photo of my real life Teasel fairy wings was used as the texture.
Since the infringement was right there in the channel, I responded to that post and commented that it’s infringing my Teasel fairy wings & provided links to my real life image that was used as well as to my Second Life wings of that design.
I even made clear that it probably wasn’t intentional & that Isaura may have come across it via a 3rd party who stole it from me.
Here’s the link to my old Wordpress blog where I posted this particular photo in 2008:
https://fancyfairy.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/new-pair-of-teasel-wings-for-sale-and-a-peak-at-the-rl-azarelle-dress/
I was met with a sort of hostile response from Julala, who said “They don’t look anything like your wings - what are you on about?”, and then told me to file a DMCA & not deal with it through that server.
Screenshots of that entire conversation below.
I responded that I was disappointed in that response, asked if they were really okay with people’s work being used without permission and tried explaining that I mentioned it since there are no rules about discussing infringement in that server & requested it be added to the Rules.
Julala’s response included her saying that the rules say ‘not to be an asshat’ and that I can interpret that how I want, inviting me to leave the group if it was too vague for me.
Isaura was not even in that group when I checked. I further explained I’m autistic & how helpful clear guidelines are, etc.
Cinny Fluffington then stepped in to also deny that the wings had any similarity at all, said all wings look similar and that ‘that’s not how copyright works’.
They complained about me causing ‘drama’, yet either one could have simply told me to message the admin privately or not to post about infringement in that channel & left it at that, rather than belittle me and my copyright in my work, which is what actually created the drama they say they don’t want.
All screenshots are above so you can read exactly what happened for yourself without bias from me.
I do think it’s unfortunate that in some circles in SL, pointing out copyright infringement is treated as a worse violation than infringement itself. This is not the first time I’ve encountered this attitude even when it’s very obvious, and so far it’s historically been employed when the infringer is someone they’re either friends with or profit from in some way, so they don’t have any incentive to do the right thing or criticize their creator friend if their policy is to stay loyal regardless of bad behavior.
I left that group and blocked those 2 creators plus a 3rd that was reacting with hearts on the insulting comments, because after a couple decades of having my IP stolen & met with vitriol I don’t want any contact with those who excuse or exhibit that behavior.
I realize Julala is more established and has a larger presence than I do in SL, being the developer of Herb & Fable and responsible for one of the Fantasy Faire regions, that Cinny is also tightly connected, and that’s precisely why I felt I should get the facts straight before a twisted version of them gets spread around behind the scenes to hurt my reputation.
Been there before, and I’d like to avoid it.
I had no animosity towards Isaura and hoped I’d eventually get a response that included an apology and how it was an innocent mistake.
But then, after Fantasy Faire removed the 2 infringing vendors on Saturday, I finally got a notecard from Isaura. Here it is, along with my responses below.
She’s refusing to cooperate or continue conversing with me, insisting that it’s all her creation when my photo is there in her texture plain as day to anyone who has an artist’s eye. Maybe even those who don’t.
She also put the vendors back up. She seemed to not know that Fantasy Faire had already removed them at the time of her initial notecard.
I reported the updates to the Fantasy Faire team that day, and as of last night the vendors were removed again. As far as who removed them, I’m not really sure. The person most in charge has not responded to me yet since my last message but 2 others on the team said it was not them.
I did report it to Linden Labs so it’s possible they removed it without updating me via email yet, but it’s also possible Isaura had a change of heart.
I blocked her after she told me she didn’t want to communicate with me anymore, but my website has a contact form for email that is still open to any of these people to use should they decide to reach out. Perhaps they were in a more emotional state at the time and could later see more clearly what the problem was.
Those are all my relevant receipts of the situation. If anyone has questions or needs more details, let me know as I’m happy to give it. I’m not hiding anything.