I feel that hard. Kinda left FA myself and try not to drown on the internet, but happy to see your art again <3

Appreciate you saying so!

It's been kinda fun getting caught up with all the art i've missed here from artists I forgot about after breaking away from this site.

Life makes it hard to keep up with the online world when you get older but it's comforting to see familiar usernames again <3

Yeah, eventually (at least for me) the fandom becomes less about role-playing and conventions and more about casual convos with friends and gaming. Mutual projects, gifts and just chilling out. Don't have much energy after work most days for anything substantial but those that stuck with me are the good ones

For me it's been a struggle keeping up with others, I find I want to be close with people online again, but I live in fear of a lot of the bad encounters and drama I delt with when it came to online friendships in my late teens, early 20's.

I feel like I just don't have the mental energy for that kind of stuff anymore, even if I do miss the positive times that came from it.

I do love the creativity this fandom inspires in both myself and others, though. It would be wonderful if I can find the motivation for interacting with it and the people in it, that I once had. It's been slow going, and all I can say is I'm grateful for those that are patient with me and my slow response times online.

Well if you have Telegram, I'm pretty calm and drama free and can chat when I'm around!

That's an app i've been slowly interacting with more thanks to a couple folks reaching out. I'll hop on over ina few!

It's fun because stickers. God I love my stickers

I need to make some, mostly I use whatever joke art I have saved on my phone that i've made

Good to see you!

I left my biggest audience of Twitter because ya know...it's on fire to come back here and I always joke with friends that everyone comes back here eventually lol...

Well met!

I feel that, honestly, Twitter is great for finding out what is immediately going on in the fandom but, I found it was way too drama prone for my liking, it's a shame so many artists find themselves feeling obligated to stay there. I too am fairly still swept up in it in some ways but i'm trying to ween myself off it and get back to my roots with fa, and tumblr, as thats the second website many of us tend to be drawn back to eventually, hah hah.

Funny enough, I never was able to find a big audience on twitter. I consider it a good day if I get to 5 likes on a post over there.

It really sucks because I had a pretty decent following on Twitter and was getting a lot of interaction but the drama aspect and just the real life atrocities everywhere was destroying my mental health enough that I just had to leave.

I'm still on tumblr but it feels like every site that isn't Twitter isn't as active interaction wise.

I'm trying out bluesky and I'm liking it so far but it has it's 'quirks' as well.

It just sucks that everyone is kinda thrown to the wind with no specific homebase anymore hahaha.

forreal, the internet is in an identity crisis atm, and it's not been kind to the casual enjoyers. I like the nonsense chaos of tumblr as just a goofy little place to absorb media, but I miss the old days when stuff was more loose. Though I find that unless you are there posting fanart or fandom related content, that your personal work doesnt go too far.

I'll be honest, after what happened with the tumblr migration to Pillowfort being a bust, I didnt have much faith in bluesky, but it's got a bit more life in it than I give it credit for. Still, it doesn't feel like a new chill place to be for me personally, just like a "well if some people wanna hang out here, i'll check in every now and then I suppose" but maybe in a couple years it'll pickup.

I do find myself liking beig back here so far.

Yea I'm loudly not a fan of the new iteration of '4 major websites' internet. I do feel like people were much more likely to engage with each other on sites like this Back in the Day though honestly I think everyone is just very exhausted and don't have the same kind of energy to talk to others anymore and I know that's the case for me most of the time.

I have a nice small discord server I run with a ton of good folks and that's where I spend most of my art sharing time but Bluesky I'm trying my best to make happen but I kinda have zero faith in it because I've learned lol.

There was an art gallery site awhile back called Buzzly and that was...the BEST feeling I had in years art gallery site wise. It was wonderful; I met so many awesome people there and then the owners turned out to be absolute scumbags and they ruined it.

And yea Tumblr is The Fandom Capital and I just don't do fandom I'm more of an oc connoisseur both in creation and what I want to see from others.

Personally I get a fair amount of joy from fanworks, and insider fan jokes, plus I love deep diving into whatever media i'm currently absorbed in still, so that's my main source of why I still spend a good chunk of time on tumblr.

This is my first time learning about Buzzly, it's always a shame when a good thing gets ruined by it's creator. I personally really got a lot out of furryamino for a while there, but a lot of folks warned me off of it because it's apparently got a rampant art theft problem. Plus too many younger people on there.
I use Discord for mostly the same reason I use tumblr, and discord fandoms always feel more intimate, at least as long as they remain small.

If you're offering I wouldn't mind joining your discord, if you wanna dm me a link, but fair warning I tend to come and go weeks without responding sometimes.

Absolutely nw if you're not looking to add more folks though, I understand.

I don't do fandom much but I do engage with some very niche ones like Zoids; Monster Rancher and well Dragon Quest is much less niche but in the US it definitely is lmao.

Tumblr is pretty chill these days a lot more chill than it used to be as well.

And yeaaaaa Buzzly was SO nice it was so close to how things used to be with the dawn of the original dA and FA Sheezyart and all (sheezyart is also coming back but will be a bit restrictive on content posted apparently)

And yeye totally I sent an invite to ya! I'm always happy to have more folks in.

I feel that. I've been full on salary man the last year, but somewhere is a hole left by not being part of the online community.

I really do miss the fandom, or at least early days of me being in the fandom and feeling like I had something worth sharing with others.

I've certainly been struggling with trusting myself to open up to others as well, keeping up with online folks and chats gets so difficult when you get older and have to focus on working to survive :(

It's a weird cycle of being worried i'm not chatting enough to be worth talking to others online, I don't have fun stuff to talk about because my life becomes focused on work and not much else, then I just avoiding chats because I feel like I can't connect with others like I used to.

Aw. Well, I always thought of you as a friend. But, I don't think it's just you. The fandoms definitely changed, I feel like in general people are just less interested in being friends and doing stuff for fun. I'm thinking everyone is stretched thin.

I think for a lot of folks theres a desire to do things, and make friends but lets face it, there's little to nothing you can do outside of your home these days that doesnt require money, and that's something that a lot of folks dont have anymore.

That plus social media making a lot of people paranoid to go outside. Or at least in my experience, worried to be in open public spaces and being filmed without consent to be publicly ridiculed later.

It feels like it's harder and harder to make and maintain new friendships casually. But honestly I may just be one paranoid mess.

Possibly, you remember Nick Sprinkles? She's trans, she goes by Nicole now. Immediately after coming out she started getting harassed online. Someone contacted a friend we had when I was in college saying they needed proof shes a pedophile. There was none, and our old friend notified us about it.

Maybe it's true about everyone being more hostile lately. Personally, I've found when I try to get my local community together, everyone is either has no money, or no time. The most I can get is a couple gym buddies and it's only people who can afford a gym membership and who would go anyway.

It feels bad, I make a middle class wage and I can't afford a decent enough place to host the local community. I'd love so much to do bi-weekly game or movie nights, but even if i could, I'm not sure people would even show up.

Online sucks, too. No matter how much I reach out to people, no one even says hi. I know a lot of people who apparently play VR chat, so I got a VR set and no one ever seems to want to play that.

last time I tried to do fun stuff in a public area with friends on a regular basis we had the cops called on us and the guy who called them filmed us, uploaded it online, wrote an entire online community article on us because we were "shady" for gathering so late in his conservative-ass eyes. Small towns are hell. God forbid night shift people try and go out during the only time that's available to us.

Online, at least, I can block out people who have miserable takes on me for seemingly no reason.
But yeah, I'm one of those people who can barely afford rent each week so it's rare and usually on someone else's dime when I get to go out and do stuff these days.

If there was a furry group around this town I would worry about them because of the nosey weirdos around here. I know the next town over would likely have at least one or more cool groups of folks i'd love to meet with, they even have a big tabletop gaming community over there that my partner and I have had pleasant chats with in the past, if only we could afford the gas money to go more frequently... Alas.

Hopefully, in time, better job opportunities will come our way and I will be in a better position to be there for folks. It's a slow process trying to get myself more present at least online for people, and mental health has been in the gutter, but i'm trying to claw my way out.

Nicole sometimes runs Dnd over Telegram. In any case, I consider you my friend, you can always come find me online if you need someone to chat with.

Appreciate it man, and sorry, for all the lost time on my part.