i think it's offsetting bones, possibly also scaling

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^and that would be my cat's theory

Allegory: I love your cat's theory. And thanks for your answer too. I just wasn't sure how they were making offsets and things happen with no scripting. I'm still learning, only dabble and rig basic things for practice/minutely deal with the sl skeleton.

you can upload joint modifications on a mesh object, it's not a script. like the way people make horse avatars.

(and in the human mesh, maitreya has the finger bones offset, as does belleza, and belleza jake also has bones scaled)

mystery solved! thank you so much!