Can i be so for real

Orichan 2025-03-30 03:10:16 UTC #10

I think I'll try to make a point to hang here more! I was on a bit to get to those first 25 subs but wasn't really using it to socialize properly. Given some kinda annoying dynamics on DeviantArt (where I usually try to interact) I'll try to start being present here!

Orichan 2025-03-30 03:11:00 UTC #11

Hell yeah! Let's draw for the love of the game! >

jwabeasley 2025-03-30 03:17:50 UTC #12

This is fixable! I have awesome RPs with my friends and their more developed OCs every week. TTRPGs are good fun for adults! Find yourself a peer RP group (or be the dungeon master. I am the dungeon master in my group)

Orichan 2025-03-30 03:19:42 UTC #13

RIGHT!? Me too! I feel like as adults we have to like, justify our shit by making it nice and cohesive and build a following or whatever. I kinda like that I'm a little better at some stuff from those days and I do feel a genuine drive to follow through with my own plans as a creator, but I hate the feeling of every interaction being transactional and the feeling that every person wouldn't mind if every other person's work just fell off so they have a chance to stand out. It was way more fun to be like YEAH THIS IS MY OC SHES FROM THE DIAMOND VILLIAGE I MADE IT UP WANNA PUT HER IN A LOVE TRIANGLE WITH YOUR HALF SHINIGAMI LONG LOST SIBLING OF THAT CANNON CHARACTER... Like, I'm not gonna do that on account of all these standards we developed on the way, but it's was fun and worth mourning the loss of.

Orichan 2025-03-30 03:29:21 UTC #14

ALSO ALL OF YOUR ART SLAPS @wolflu66 i subbed to your comic back a while ago and it stuck out as something I actually wanted to read. I love your use of color and your character designs! @remiquise you gave me some good advice on horror art and I was like oh heck gotta learn from them! @jwabeasley your style and world building are so ethereal and cute at the same time and @justincarbunkle I love your cute and cartoony style-- it's one I've never been able to do tbh and @kyupol you are really prolific in creating things that you feel need to be made

These responses have really cheered me up and helped me feel seen!

enderdragon 2025-03-30 03:32:45 UTC #15

Yeah, AI-generated content is appearing literally EVERYWHERE now, and now that "dead internet theory" is starting to make a whole sense now.

When I was browsing Pixiv recently, literally 99% of the artwork I saw on there was AI-generated, and it really sucked.

In the past, I used to see absolutely nothing wrong with AI imagery (especially when it was in its infancy and it was still a new thing). It was cute at first when it was more of a new and niche thing, but now that I see how much it has basically taken over many art platforms and is drowning out "real" human art on these platforms, my views on it have changed. Most AI images look like shit anyway.

But what I hate even more is AI-generated YouTube content. If I hear one more AI-voice narrating an entirely ChatGPT-written script over generic stock footage clips, I SWEAR TO GOD.....

Ahem...anyway, I don't mean to veer too far off the topic, but yeah.

Edit: On the OP's subject, yeah, the Internet can feel like a super-lonely place sometimes, considering there are so many people but one doesn't truly know how to interact with them all. I deal with loneliness and depression IRL, so I definitely want to socialize and stuff more, even online, but its easier said than done.

Orichan 2025-03-30 03:36:48 UTC #16

Lol I have 2 weekly RP groups but like it's funny because the way I play in those and engage with them feels really different from online RP communities... if I'm seriously thinking about it is probably how the nature of in person tabletop actively discourages side conversations between players (because its rude, obviously) while online play by post or just a proliferation of collaboration and art trades in the same agreed upon world encouraged a lot of brainstorming in often changing small groups that would then present to the greater community and then get added on to by other individuals and groups. It's honestly so hard to reproduce without infrastructure and the enshitification of these platforms means that even if these communities exist, they don't get as big or active because they get lost in the noise/algorithm

Orichan 2025-03-30 03:43:44 UTC #17

That is definitely not a tangent! I think its directly applicable to the loneliness! I was talking to my person about this because it's been irritating me, but the platforms that feel "lonely" now are the same accounts I've had for almost 20 years. If you look at the friend/follower/mutual count it hasn't changed and tons of them are real people I've met at cons over the years. Like, the people who you'd want to interact with still exist, but their posts aren't put in front of me and my posts aren't put in front if them. No one wants to be isolated, but the mechanisms are straight up broken.

jwabeasley 2025-03-30 04:00:10 UTC #18

For sure - I never had a good experience with play by post, even with good friends. The conversations would always get bogged down even with the best of intentions. In person or video conference D&D works much better.

My limit on art trades is time! Wish I had about twice as many hours in each day!

I used to play a lot on different online RP communities ~2008 when I was a teenager. My time for those is too limited to get back in even if they were still good but you're right that the internet is full of meaningless, frustrating noise right now. I'm better off making IRL friends than any public community.

remiquise 2025-03-30 04:48:55 UTC #19

It seems like every time I'm invited to a D&D group something happens and it always falls through. It's happened 3 times now. Though my coworker said his group was changing their D&D meeting day and implied I might be able to join now that it won't conflict with my writing group (who knew Thursdays at 6pm was a popular time). So who knows maybe this time-- maybe not. Not entirely sure how serious he was since I'd basically have to be babysat; I have no clue how these games function. Also not sure how willing his friends would be to have someone new join since they've been a group for years.
And I definately don't know enough to DM lmao

remiquise 2025-03-30 05:25:53 UTC #20

Like, to be fair, I definately have some kind of inner need to make things a lot more cohierent than when I was younger, but like that doesnt mean "no rediculousness and no fun". I like a little cheeseiness, even now. I don't even mind a little "mary sue" energy in my "fun"-- though I try not to get too rediculous for my posted stuff, not everything needs to be for an audience.

runeslime 2025-03-30 05:34:39 UTC #21

Oh yeah, week days are the secret golden key for D&D lol. I've always had luck on Mondays and Thursdays on being able to get a solid group together that consistently can play.
Most people are super cool with brand new players joining and wouldn't invite you if it wasn't! We had a new player join our six year long game recently and I've been in other groups where it's happened.
People are also usually happy to help teach you the game as you play as well <3

It's worth a shot if you get the chance. Its really helped fill that void for me and I love getting to share silly art of the characters with other people in the groups. I know it can be intimidating at first though!

Orichan 2025-03-30 05:34:58 UTC #22

Well if they are any good at role-playing they will appreciate a new character to engage with! Though philosophies differ from group to group on seriousness tone and gameplay to story ratio! I wish you luck in joining, but also don't give up if this group doesn't work out, I'd say the best tips I've learned for having fun in DnD is 1)make sure your character is excited to be there, whether they are a selfish rouge excited for a good score, a high minded hero, or they want to save their mom, interpret the objective of the quest as part of this. 2)Try to give a window into their inner world- if the character is open and talkative this is easiest, but if you want to play a shy/mean/edgy character narrate their expressions and actions with detail so its never just "they don't respond because responding wouldn't be in character " but "they look like they might respond but visibly blanche as soon as someone mentions kobolds, it seems like they don't want to talk about that thing"

Sorry if this advice is unwarranted! I just really like DnD XD I hope you have fun when you play!

Orichan 2025-03-30 05:41:17 UTC #23

Agreed! I think I went through a phase where I was like no more crazy edgelord shenanigans I MUST BE LITERARY but then I got bored and it was pointed out to me that my choices came from a place of wanting to adhere to an arbitrary standard based in shame and I was like FUCK THIS I will make the stuff that I find amusing because this is all just for fun anyway!

Lensing 2025-03-30 06:55:56 UTC #24

I have a real life group of illustrators and artists. We meet regularly and talk about art, oil paint, books, comic drawing,
struggles as an artist and we do life drawing with models.

One of the best things that I did this year was drawing a crappy traditional comic with my brother like we used
to do when we were kids. I´m turning 50 soon, my brother is 2,5 years older than me. We used to draw those
really trashy comics in the 80s when we were kids. Then we laughed about it and drew the next one. They
were mostly very chaotic, funny, violent or just bizzare.

I don´t like the communication on facebook, instagram etc. there is always a troll or somebody laughing about
what you wrote. Or you read those horrible discussions of people who love AI or something like that.
Instagram is filled with extremely superficial stuff.

I like the communication with the same 10-20 people on the tapas forum

remiquise 2025-03-30 07:01:00 UTC #25

I have my reasons to worry about this group and how they might be wary of me, and I also have my reasons for thinking this idea had not been run by his other friends before mentioning it to me hah; (That reason being I was bugging him about how he'll be able to join my writing group now that he'll be free so he might have just been matching my energy.) its something I'll just let him bring up on his own again if he was serious or not. I'll definately give the group a shot if he was serious.

remiquise 2025-03-30 07:01:45 UTC #26

Hah, I kind of already knew that stuff because it pops up a lot on my feeds (probably because the algerithum knows I know story telling tips) but thank you! I'm less worried about my character and rather if I can actually will myself to RP in front of folks I don't know, let alone a group. I definately got issues with becoming too anxious or overwelmed and going mute.

Oh mood, on some other site I did a comic that, to this was, was my most popular. hated the thing. I wrote it because that's what others wanted, not me, so I learned: never again. I'll write what I want, what I enjoy, and if others like it too so be it. That's a bonus. If it ain't paying your bills. Guess it really is a lesson lots learn the hard way hah;;

moontokkym 2025-03-30 08:45:35 UTC #27

The bots play a role but also: we all had way more time on our hands to just draw as kids and there were NO EXPECTATIONS that what we did had to be good.

As an adult there's a kind of latent ageism (which is just factually incorrect to hold true) that you "should be able to do some things by now" in art, and if you want to be seen as "good" it's got to be good in the subtle professional ways that only invested people see. You can't just draw your oc 17 times and then chat to people for hours on DeviantArt because you're 27, you have a job, you might have kids of your own, and even if you do have time... It's kind of weird because the other people who have time are teenagers whom you don't have much life in common with, meanwhile they're all bonding over schoolwork and teacher drama and the cool new anime they all had the time to watch... That was how you made online friends and built communities and I see the kids do it, it's still happening all over internet with their sonic ocs and petty friendship dramas, and it's usually kind of cute.

We're just not at that speed anymore. Quality takes time, effort takes energy, and irl life and responsibilities take up most of those things now.

Leyelle 2025-03-30 13:09:19 UTC #28

Yeah, it can feel really hard to share your art these days. The internet is so full of content that we're mostly all screaming into a void

jwabeasley 2025-03-30 23:43:27 UTC #29

Understandable, it takes some persistence to find a group that you can click with and that doesn't fall through. I've had the same thing happen, that's why my group includes some longtime RP friends - and once you find a good group, don't let them go!

Every group I've been in is very welcoming to new players of any skill level. The fresh perspective keeps things interesting. I think you would enjoy it if you give it a chance, though.

Paying bills with comics is very difficult, even for full time talented professionals! That's why it sits in a 'dedicated hobby' or 'sanity saving side-gig' slot rather than my job.

Those jerks are all scammers - they talk and act like scammers. Spending any effort on them is just a waste. I look forward to when the venture capital dries up and they all have to pay $10 for each janky drawing.