I’ve played a few avi/pet sites throughout the years, but I haven’t stuck with one in a while. I’m not the most social but I hope I can force myself to socialize more because I don’t really have any online friends anymore, unfortunately.

A little about me: I’m in my 30s, I love animals (especially cats), anime, reading books and manga, music (mostly rock or older Jpop and K-pop). I collect plushies and other cute things, I’m neurodivergant, I love art (I’m not very good at making my own though). I also like video games but the only ones I’ve been playing lately are Stardew Valley (trying to get a perfect save) and Pokémon Legends: Arceus.

Hope to see y’all around!

@Totalanimefan Thanks for the welcome and donation! I have RF4 Special on the Switch and played it a ton, but I took a break and I forgot what I was doing and the mechanics, haha. I was on the final part of the game so hopefully I can figure it out eventually so I don't have to start a new save. I haven't played any of the other games in the series. I was interested in RF5 but I saw the reviews were kind of mixed on that.

@Pashminapanda: Thanks! Yeah, I used to play Gaia around '03-07 but lost interest once inflation got bad and all my irl friends stopped playing it. :s

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Welcome to Voltra!

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧@starry: Yeah, same here. :( I keep saying that these avi websites will make a comeback, hopefully it isn't just false hope.

@stinky: Oh yeah, there’s also the fact I let my Nintendo Online sub run out so I can’t play anything online anyway. x_x Hate that it’s extra cause I don’t play online enough to justify the cost. That sounds like a cool design. Maybe I’ll just look up other people’s islands, haha.

The pet sites I’ve played are Neopets, Goatlings, Dappervolk, Furvilla, Subeta, Aywas, Tattered Weave, Novilar, Flight Rising (this one’s too confusing for me though so I didn’t do much lol) and some older ones that no longer exist like Acitius, BooPets, Creature World. And I guess Chicken Smoothie if that counts.

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧@starry: That is true. I don't feel old until I try talking to people in that age group. lol

@totalanimefan: Yep! The first song I heard by her was Put 'Em Up but it was around Queen of Hip-Pop and Play that I got really into her. I've always loved the WoWa PV and remember when I was younger being jealous of her hair in a lot of her videos cause it always looked perfect, lol. And IIRC the Queen of Hip-Pop CD came with Pink Panther stickers and a poster, which was cute. I like Past < Future a lot too. I'm not as familiar with her albums after Uncontrolled but I think I have them on my PC. I saw a while back that her discography's on Spotify too, which is awesome.

@totalanimefan: She really is beautiful! I have all her CDs up to Past < Future as well as a random issue of S Cawaii that I bought cause she's on the cover. XD That's too bad you didn't get the tickets, it would've been so fun to see her live. That's awesome her songs helped you learn Japanese. I never learned much when I tried to teach myself before, but I taught myself how to read katakana and hiragana years ago for the sole purpose of downloading stuff off WinMX, since most users there were Japanese. But actually learning the grammar + kanji is another thing entirely lol. I did appreciate how strong and independent she was amongst all the cutesy idol groups (even though I listen to a lot of them, hahaha), and I wasn't as into the music of the other diva solo female singers at the time like Ayu or Hikki as much as I liked Namie's music

That's a long time to be out of the media... hopefully she's just enjoying living a quiet and peaceful life.

@aisukohi: Linkin Park was my favorite band when I was 13 and one of my gateway bands into modern rock, but my parents wouldn't take me to concerts when I was younger so I never got to see them. I did see Chester when he was fronting Stone Temple Pilots, and I was in the front row and he sat on the rail right next to me and shook my hand during the song. Still, I would've loved to have seen LP.

That's pretty awesome; I watched the first few seasons of MHA in English and the last couple in Japanese. I like Todoroki and Tsuyu. :)
I've seen Gurren Lagaan referenced a lot, and I think it's on Netflix so I definitely plan to check it out one of these days. I don't think the animation style looks bad, but I do see a lot of people that hate older anime styles so I guess that's understandable. I have the same problem of forgetting stuff I've watched too. One of the reasons I prefer watching series that are already completed, otherwise I tend to forget what's happened between seasons, lol!

I haven't been to any of the main anime cons, but when I lived in the SF Bay area I went to the local J-pop Summit Festival a couple times. Though I wasn't watching any recent anime at the time and mostly went for the J-pop music performances and for the other general Japanese culture things. XD I went to my local anime/comic con where I live now a few years ago, but it was small and kind of boring because I wasn't interested in any of the guests. I'd like to go to a larger one one day, but I don't drive so that's kind of an issue since the ones outside of my city are even farther away.

@aisukohi: I didn't go to my first concert till I was 23. My parents didn't like the bands I listened to at the time.That's pretty convenient that your university's campus had concerts! I've heard of that band but I dunno any songs by them.

Aww, that sounds like a fun experience! I'm bad with names so I'm not familiar with too many VAs, neither English or Japanese. Sometimes a voice will sound familiar and I'll look up the name and be like 'oh, they also voiced ___" so that's where I've heard them before. I think some of the MHA VAs came to a local con here that was a few months ago, but I didn't have a ride. I used to go with my friend, but she has a toddler now so she doesn't have much time anymore. I hope I can go to a big one too one day, though a multi day once sounds exhausting to me too. XD I want to cosplay someday, because I never have before. The little con here that I did go to, I bought a couple art prints from a woman who did really nice watercolor artworks; I got a couple little Pokemon art prints, one with Ghastly/Haunter/Gengar and one with Vulpix & Ninetails. I like looking at the art at cons a lot too. :) I wish I had bought some more because my walls are pretty bare and in need of some art.

@totalanimefan: True, I'm sure she was since she's so fashionable. Shame I can't read Japanese, but since it's a fashion mag there's plenty of fun pics to look at at least, lol.

Oh cool! I lived in the North Bay for a few years, but I moved back to CO where I'm originally from.

Yeah, it's definitely way different from English, the way a kanji can be read different ways depending on what it's combined with, and trying to remember all the strokes. I can recognize some of the more common and simple ones, plus I can recognize the names of my favorite artists such as Namie, but that's about it. Nowadays there's translation apps anyway, so if I do ever get to go to Japan, hopefully I can rely on those a little bit.

Ayu was one of the first Jpop artists I heard, and I like some of her songs but I think part of it is I don't like her voice that much. XD Utada has some songs I like, and they have a great voice, but I just never got too into their music style I guess. I have always liked Traveling, Colors and Wait & See though! And Utada was also one of the first Jpop artists I heard; I remember I heard a Kingdom Hearts CM on TV and Simple and Clean was the bg song, so I looked it up to download. I think they have a lot of English fans who got into them from that game. That's awesome that they're still making music and living in London. :D