Ask Lemmy

Have you ever left the Lemmyverse (or I guess r*****) for more than a few days and if so, why did you quit, how did it go and what brought you back?

I keep trying to learn to draw but I simply suck at it no matter what. I’d love to learn how to draw all kinds of things like architectural drawings, or cute designs, etc. But I can barely even copy something if I have the picture right in front of me.

I’d like to take a class that teaches the basics of drawing that I could follow along with using Procreate or something. Does anyone have good recommendations for someone who seems unable to gain any proficiency at drawing?

Just want to hear stories so I can mentally prepare myself for such... hostile... interactions... (Hopefully this never happens to me)

P.S: And before anyone start spamming "Don't Consent to searches", remember that that's a very democracy-centric viewpoint. In some countries you could be jailed for refusing.

I have written a book and would like to add pictures. I am also poor and can't easily pay a bunch of money, especially when I expect this book to make no money at all. It is an adult themed horror book and I want pictures like in The Wizard of Oz. Some of the characters, who are mostly women, are bi, one is possibly trans, it's a book that a conservative would never want to illustrate for many reasons. There are LGBT themes and also offensive shocking and strange themes. I would be fine if AI helped generate them, but I need the characters to look consistent across the book. I almost wish I could use AI to draw the pictures, and tried experimenting, but could not get AI to generate the faces to look consistently the same. (AI sort of did whatever it felt like doing, instead of drawing as requested.) I also want color images. I'd like them to look realistic. I have ideas about what the characters look like. This isn't a comic book... although it could become one someday.

I have no idea where to look. My hatred for Facebook and Reddit is EXTREME. I hate fucking shit where it's some centralized asshole blocking everyone forever and/or requiring all sorts of bullshit.

Does anyone at lemmy have any ideas?

I did not realize this was a thing until I just switched to AZERTY which... despite being marketed as being "similar" to QWERTY, is still tripping me up

Edit: since this came up twice: I'm switching since I'm relocating to the French-speaking part of the world & I just happened to want to learn the language/culture, so yeah

Thinking about the fun "become ungovernable" memes, and how "become unmarketable" would potentially be even more fitting in corporate dominated societies.

I am quite good at talking to people. But I want to step up my flirting game. So what are some relatively "safe" ways to flirt?

Hey folks, I’m a freelance voice-over artist and QA reviewer working on training content, usually things like workplace harassment and diversity courses. Recently, I was asked to QA a course on workplace harassment—and noticed the client had removed all references to gender, replacing it with sex. Anywhere the word “gender” appeared, it was just… gone or replaced.

It seems like a subtle thing on the surface, but it’s not. It completely shifts the tone and scope of the training. It feels like a quiet rollback of DEI principles, and honestly, it made my stomach turn. The kicker? I need this job. Turning this down could burn a bridge I can’t afford to lose.

I have a good relationship with the lead on the project (who's just relaying instructions—they don’t have control over the content decisions), and I want to say something. At the same time, I’m scared that even a polite pushback could cost me.

Has anyone else been in this kind of situation? How do you draw the line when your ethics and survival are at odds? Would really appreciate your thoughts.

For me it's moving your bed away from the side walls so it's in the middle of the room. I had my bed to the side my whole childhood

Turning 28 in a month and in the past year everything has gotten drastically worse.

Is this just a normal part of aging or am I unlucky? I mean I am almost 30 but it just seemed kind of sudden idk.

Like for example my varicose veins have gotten exponentially worse this year, I feel like my skin is sagging a lot over my whole body, and I feel like I've lost muscle mass, like significantly. To be fair I wasn't as active as usual but in other similar situations I was never looking this way.

Doctors said I'm fine btw. I'm just so exhausted and it's depressing seeing this shit.

For many religious people, raising their children in their faith is an important part of their religious practice. They might see getting their kids into heaven as one of the most important things they can do as parent. And certainly, adults should have the right to practice their religion freely, but children are impressionable and unlikely to realize that they are being indoctrinated into one religion out of the thousands that humans practice.

And many faith traditions have beliefs that are at odds with science or support bigoted worldviews. For example, a queer person being raised in the Catholic Church would be taught that they are inherently disordered and would likely be discouraged from being involved in LGBTQ support groups.

Where do you think the line is between practicing your own religion faithfully and unethically forcing your beliefs on someone else?

Ideally your answer is a sub that you are currently posting to but few others are posting to.

Not sure if this fits here, feel free to remove if not.

I'm sure the algorithm must be working as intended, but I always see a lot of rapid-fire posts under each other when browsing "Hot". Is this normal or am I missing a setting?

I do mean stuff like removed scenes from international airings, replacing objects like cigarettes or vine with any other objects.

So basically I've pretty much stopped using reddit as I've noticed it getting worse and worse over the past few years, and probably even longer. The main thing that kept me on there was the subreddit for my favorite sports team, but I've since found a pretty active online forum that sort of re-creates the enjoyment I got out of discussing them on reddit. I'd like to find something like to simulate the rest of reddit too. I used to love posting on certain forums back in the day, but I don't even know where to start looking. Something like a general use forum, preferably populated by millenials, with discussions about whatever. Movies, music, pop culture, sports, politics, random internet bullshit, whatever. I think it would be great to kind of re-create the sense of seeing new stuff like on reddit, but with a much smaller community.

EDIT: I understand that Lemmy can be viewed as an answer to this question, but it's not for me. I'm looking for an actual forum, with a sense of community. The whole decentralization aspect of the Feidverse seems great to prevent enshittification, or to prevent a billionaire from buying and tanking the place, but I don't really see it ever appealing to normal, non tech savvy people.

I am looking for ideas on what products should be produced locally. Not things that your area can do sn awesome job at and export. Rather things that should be locally produced near everyone.

Feel free to define "locally" as you wish. I am thinking with 5 miles, but with 200 is also good.

Please include your reasoning. Everything from shipping costs, to ownership "punch-ability" are great.

I will kick things off in the comments.