u/No_Environment7483

I can't post what they post since it has their faces in it but I'm so weirded out rn. They meet each other in real life, take selfies, feed the selfies into AI, and then post the AI versions. Why??? Like I can't comprehend why. Literally scratching my head. Whyyyyy???? Just post the actual photos? Why AI?? All it did was change them into different looking people that kinda looks like them but isn't at the same time and with their piercings melting into their skin. It's just super uncanny and I still can't comprehend on why.

One of them had a gf like 2 months ago, had her over, took selfies, and then my friend fed the selfies into AI and posted those instead of the actual ones, her gf left her because she thought my friend was unhappy with the way she looked, I feel so bad for that girl. My friends are literally drunk on Chatgpt, basically borderline obsessed.

I just needed to rant because it feels like I'm in a simulation at this point. I literally started to feel insane because I still can't find a logical explanation on why they post AI versions of themselves that changed nothing except making them look like uncanny versions of themselves with their jewelry melting into their skin.

(Sidebar question that just came into mind. I'm an artist and very anti genAI, one of those friends I mentioned that's AI obsessed has also an AI obsessed family, meaning her mom, sister and dad that also put all their images into AI. They recently asked me to come paint a mural in their hallway wall, and I have no idea what to do. On one hand, I want to say yes because it's a commission after all, but I also want to tell them to stick it and ask AI to do it since they're so dependent on using genAI. Sounds selfish and childish, I know. I'm just so done with this genAI shenanigans these days😑)

For context. I've been drawing for around 9 years, it started as a fun hobby I actually enjoyed, and I only started taking it seriously in my mid teens(I'm an adult now) by studying the fundamentals, anatomy and all that stuff.

My love for art started with anime(unsurprising), even though I don't watch it as much anymore, I never stopped drawing. I only ever really drew floating heads in my 9 years of experience because learning body anatomy and clothes was incredibly overwhelming for me.

As I grew older, I started to push myself. I'm unemployed and didn't finish school, so I basically study day and night so I can make my mother proud someday. Where my problem lies a lot is the humble art tutorials. Basically, how my brain works is, I watch one tutorial, study it, actually get the hang of it, and then I'm happy. Oh? What's that? Another tutorial pops up on my feed that completely contradicts the old one I studied? Don't mind if I do. Welp, I hate it, I'm not good with this new tutorial, let's go back to the old way- Oh, oops, now that my brain tried to try the new one, I struggle hard to do the old one now and what happens? Burnout.

My brain just gets so confused. There's so many "Do's" and "Dont's," and I really wish there wasn't. Next up is the humble artstyles. I don't have an artstyle. I've been struggling to find one for 9 years, and I'm still struggling. I hate everything I put on paper. Even if I do draw a piece I like, I can't recreate that style. I don't know what type of eyes, nose and lips I like, I don't know what type of render style I like. Semi-realism? Cell shading? Textured? Soft? Simple? Messy? Comic? I don't know. I see a lot of professional artists say "study artists you like and you'll get there" I like all of them and I like none at all. I get happy seeing them, but I don't get happy drawing them. I always study what I think would get me commissions in the end and I hate it so much.

Just tonight is my last straw. I was sitting at my desk, after another digital art crisis, I've been trying to study bodies and I keep fucking up the foundation because I hate boxes, they make everything stiff so I use ovals and circles but the distance between the ribcage and pelvis always makes me lose my mind because how big should the gap be??, also the width and height of it all, anyways. I then switched over to headshots, everything I put on the head I hated. The artstyle, the size and look of the eyes, the nose, lips, hair, etc. Funny because it's what I always draw. I took a deep breath and grabbed my sketch book to sketch out some face features in different styles, on my third eye, I just gave up and came here to talk about it. I'm severely burnt out and I'm really scared I'll never find passion in art again. Everything's too cluttered in my brain, the information and stress. I can't recall the last time I really drew for myself and actually enjoyed it.

I would love some advice on how to spark my love for art again. I spent all these years to get where I am now, and I would hate for all of it to go to waste just because I'm an overthinker and want to give up.

Have a nice night everyone

TL;DR

Okay, so. Last weekend, my friends and I wanted to do a girls' weekend, so we got some drinks, shots, and drinking games. I'm pretty lightweight, so I just got myself a 12 pack of beer. We're 4 friends, it's me, my friend who I'll call A(I've known her for about 4 years), my second friend who I'll call J(I've known her for 8 years) and then J's girlfriend who I'll call C(I've known her for a few months.)

For some context, we're all in the LGBTQ space, A is bisexual, J and C are lesbians and I'm Asexual and a Demiromantic lesbian. A also got broken up with last month, so remember that. We all met up at A's house and started drinking, we all shared our drinks since everyone bought some type of Captain Morgan, and I just brought beer, lol, anyways. We played a drinking game called Kings so we got drunk pretty fast(Well I did.) C made all the drinks on the first night, she poured like more than a double for each drink since she just eyeballed it all, plus with the shots, I got drunk pretty fast.

We played some pool and made a fire to barbecue. During the night, C will randomly go into the house with A, and J will stay behind with me. She'll randomly bring up stuff like 'Oh, you and A will make such a cute couple. I don't know why you don't date.' I continuously told her that I'm not interested in her in a romantic way and she'll just bring up 'Just be FwB then, it'll make A soooo happy.' I decline again, C and A returns. A few hours pass now, and then A and J went inside. Now C is talking to me about dating A. I continuously tell her that once again, I'm not interested. A is a really sweet person but she's racist as hell and we can't even hang out more than a weekend before we argue because I'm introverted and love my own space but she's always against me and basically yelling at me when we watch movies because she has zero inside voice then she gets upset when I say nothing in turn.

Context, I'm mixed, half white, half indian. My dad passed away when I was 3 from diabetes. I got bullied A LOT in school because of my skin color. So sue me when I get upset when A calls me a 'curry muncher' 24/7 even when I told her a thousand times that I don't like it. As stupid as it sounds, my ethnicity is literally the only thing I have to remind me of who my dad was, so I get really upset when she calls me racist names.

Anyways. We went to bed at like 11pm, I was basically throwing up the whole night and passed out immediately when I got in bed. The next day, I was quiet because I felt like shit. We made breakfast, took a nap, and went for round two the night. This time, I didn't drink much because my stomach was still sensitive, so between drinks, I drank water. After my third drink, I basically only drank water. Even when I told them I'm only on water, J would continuously press her glass to my lips and just start pouring her drink into my mouth. Which is fucked up first of all.

Thought that night would be different than yesterday but nope. Once again J and C started separating everyone again to convince me to date A. When I tell C 'we're too different, I don't feel like that towards her' C would say 'that's how I felt before I met J, now look at us. Just date for a week and see how it feels.' EVERYTIME I said no, C and J would turn it around and say the exact same sentence.

I eventually went to the bathroom to vent to my sister but then J came in and started confronting me again. I started breaking down into tears this time. Saying that I felt pressured and didn't want this but they kept pushing back no matter what I say. I cried a lil about my dad too since I brought up the racism and fathers day just passed, J would go on a whole ramble about 'it's just her sense of humor, don't be so sensitive' and shit like that. Then she admitted something to me. She told A that she'll get me drunk, so A can cuddle me without me being coherent enough to push away(on the day I threw up so much.) I felt so disgusted and betrayed after that. The whole weekend they wanted me fucked up drunk so I can give false consent to either dating A, be fwb with A or be a one time fling with A. On Sunday, I said nothing to them, just packed up and went home.

I just feel gross because I thought J and C were just persistent to make A happy, but no. A knew what they were doing and even approved on it. Here I thought my own friends wanted to hang out with me for once, just have fun, relax and chill, but nope.

Sorry for the long rant, I hope it was understandable enough since English isn't my first language, I just have such an anger inside of me after that weekend, I just have to know if I'm being dramatic and overreacting or am I valid for being pissed off.

8 years. 8 years of friendship, and I don't mean anything to them anymore. But what did I expect? My only friends are my ex who cheated on me multiple times with someone who constantly told me she wishes I would just get killed and die, and my other friend used to be my best friend till she quite literally laughed and joked with my ex on a call about my crying. I went through hell because of them, but still, I'm so desperate to keep the friendships because I have no one else. Years went on with minimal texts every year.

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Yesterday, my blood sugar hit 2.7. After I recovered, I sat and really thought about my life. My friends shaped me, but they didn't shape adult me. I went through everything alone to be the person I am today, so I don't know why I'm still so goddamn desperate to get a peep from them. I'd sometimes post about cleaning out my phone and deleting some numbers just to find a pulse on the other end, but I just found my own embarrassing silence.

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I'm tired of only being relevant when they want me to be. Only when they have relationship problems or want me to text someone for them. I want to shut them out like they do to me, but I can't. I just can't. I don't know what to do anymore. It doesn't even make me sad anymore. it just makes me feel empty and alone.

I'm Asexual(VERY sex repulsed) and Demiromantic

Hihi, I'm from South Africa. I'm a smoker and a caffeine enjoyer, I play videogames(Not much pvp, RPG, and Roguelikes). I enjoy anything horror, like movies, books, art and crime documentaries. Marvel and DC enjoyer. I'm not a crazed anime fan, but I enjoy the handful of anime's I do watch, as well as animations. I used to love WWE till they recently released a bunch of my favorites, now I'm too bitter to continue watching xd. Nature is gorgeous and not appreciated enough.

I'm an artist, working mostly with irl commissions like murals and portraits. I'm mostly quiet and consider myself more introverted and very agoraphobic, I rarely leave the vicinity of my house/yard unless it's for work and a family member or friend is with me xd. I'm not on my phone much since I'm not really internet crazed.

That's really about it, I wanted to write more, but it would've been incredibly long, and would've bore at least some of you to death xd

Hope you all have a great rest of your day/night!

Before I get into talking about my interests and things, I just want to make some "deal breaker" stuff in other peoples eyes plain and clear.

First:

I do smoke, so if you don't like it then unfortunately I'm not the friend for you.

I have PCOS(google it), so it's difficult for my body to use its hormone insulin, which results in minor hair growth, acne and weight gain and also a struggle to lose that weight, but it doesn't bother me, I'm healthy as can be. So if that also bothers you, then I'm not the friend for you👍 Also, just saying off the jump, I do prefer women more due to shitty men and experiences in my life. But I still believe there are good ones apart from the shitty ones. So yes, I prefer women, but men are still okay as long as I get a good vibe. Also, life gets busy, if I don't text back in long periods of time, doesn't mean I hate you.

Anyways, time for the rest :]

My internet name is Max, I'm 18, female, Asexual(VERY sex repulsed), Demiromantic and I live in South-Africa.

Hobbies and interests:

I've been doing art for about 9 years now, started off as a silly hobby I loved to do for myself, and now I'm doing professional irl commissions for the past few years :]

I love animals a ton. I've had about 7 dogs, 3 cats, a shit ton of fish, 9 birds, 2 bearded dragons, a curly haired tarantula, and two bunnies. Now I have 3 dogs and 2 cats :] I'm also a nature lover, can't name you all the flowers on earth, but I sure love looking at them.

I'm a big gamer. Not much of a chronicle gamer anymore where I used to stay up for like 8 hours straight playing BG3 xd. I'm not much of a PvP lover, too many people verbally abusing each other than actually enjoying the game. I love RPG games SOOO much and Soulslike games. I'll name a few :]

God of War games

Monster Hunter games

Stray

Hitman

Resident Evil games

Dark Souls games

Lies of P

BG3

Stardew Valley

There's literally so much, I don't want to list all of them xd, but you get the jist. Extra: I enjoy Marvel, DC and anything horror, I'm very quiet verbally wise but very chatty text wise

That's about it, just a small deal-breaker of mine. I get incredibly irritated with the spam of unfunny brainrot. So please, just communicate like an adult with me🥹 doesn't mean you have to be a robot, I love when friends send memes. But spamming the same brainrot over and over again just gets annoying in the end. I also hate being left on read and leaving people on read, unless an emergency occurs, then of course, your life is more important than me xd

Sorry for the long read, I tend to type a lot as you can tell.

Have a nice Day/Night!