Systems and methods are provided for facilitating the presentation of expressive intent and other status information with messaging and other communication applications. The expressive intent is based on expressive effect data associated with the message recipients and/or message senders. The expressive intent can be conveyed through avatars and modified message content. The avatars convey gestures, emotions and other status information and the presentation of the avatars can be reactive to detected state information of the message recipient(s), message sender(s) and/or corresponding messaging device(s).