olivermoss | (Reply)

Ugh, that's somehow not surprising, yet is very annoying. Why are people *like* that?

Generic and samey seems to be the draw for a lot of things. And like... I get it to some extent - if I can find the particular set of catnip tropes and character dynamics that I love, I'll read quite a few similar things and love every one! However... those are very rarely actually the popular things that are being churned out on KU or the various pay-by-chapter sites out there.
Maybe if my tastes did follow more popular/generic lines I would feel differently, ha, but for better or worse, I don't like the stuff that's intended for broad, generic appeal.

I luckily had at least some decent elementary ed art classes - nothing amazing at that age, but we got to do a few different things and at least do very simple intros to various mediums. Unfortunately we were probably mostly too young to appreciate or remember much about it, or for it to even guide later interest!
I think by middle school it was just one elective of many, though my memory could be off. In high school you only needed one art credit to graduate. By that point, the classes were more specialized, so there wasn't a generalist "try a bunch of different things!" option.
I took jewelry, and it was absolutely no real instruction. We got a list of projects we had to complete by the end of the semester, and extremely basic information on how to use the equipment (soldering irons and such)... and then no check-ins at all, so I wound up doing all of mine, badly, in a panic in like two weeks because I hadn't done anything all semester.

I definitely learned more about art from poking around deviantArt as a teen than from high school art, ha.

People are terrible at judging edited photos, or things that just utilize certain techniques - like long exposures. I've certainly seen lovely images captured that way! But yeah, waterfalls don't naturally have that glowy hazy look that a super long exposure gives, and it makes me a little sad that people don't realize that... water doesn't... do that?

Yeah, I wish that I'd ever had any real luck with a writing group. I've had to nope out of more than a few, and I know that I've also just not really given much effort in other ones on discord and such.

Oh god, however many are selling the idea of "ai writing as easy passive income", it's too many. Ugh.