This post is huge, so I'm gonna put a TL;DR at the bottom with a link to the new proboards.
The thing is, I'm super busy right now, and I'm trying to start this project that I've been wanting to do for YEARS now. I also want to start creating a portfolio so I can maybe get a job and take more proper commissions, and focusing on improving my art. All in all, I'm just too busy to be constantly working on AoA stuff, which, unfortunately, is a horrible thing to fill a portfolio with. With the proboards, there will be art, just not a whole shitton. It'll definitely be RP heavy, not art.
I would just lower my workload and stay on Gaia, but I feel like I'm growing out of it. Not so much the website, I still have a ton of fun with the avatars and stuff, but the forum community is really wearing down on me. (Don't get me wrong, I love
all of you, I'm just talking about the community outside of AoA.) A lot of Gaia (especially B/C) is just really stupid and annoying to me and I don't really want to go through the effort/have the obligation of trying to gather more of an audience. Basically, I'm tired of the whole competition aspect of B/C. I feel like if you aren't as popular as Soquili/Shadows of Africa/This is Halloween/insert popular B/C shop here, you're going to have the reputation of having something bad associated with your shop, because you don't have a huge following. Plenty times I've seen shops with amazing art, much better than a shop that uses bases, be completely ignored just because people see that it's slow.
I'm also super tired of the drama in B/C. It seems like there's constantly drama somewhere, and while it's fun to read about at first, it gets super tiring after a while. It's always over something completely trivial, like a stupid sparkle wolf or something.
I think part of this is due to the fact that I'm aging, while Gaia's target audience is not. Gaia is meant for teenagers. It's meant for like 16 year old kids. The funnest I've had on the site when I was 14 through 16. I was also a huge idiot back then. I'm not implying that Gaia was made for idiots, and I'm not implying that all 16 year olds are idiots. I'm saying that people mature. I've done a whole lot of it in the last four years, believe it or not, and while I wholly support being able to enjoy whatever you want as an adult, whether it's meant for adults, children or teenagers, it definitely gets harder to socialize with 16 year olds the older you get. I've noticed that, through my own experience being a teenager, and through my experience socializing with them as an adult, what teenagers are extremely hard headed. In general, they ALWAYS think they're right. It's extremely hard to become friends with them, for me at least, because I either end up feeling like a mentor or a teacher to them, or I end up being incredibly annoyed and frustrated by the things they say. I'm pretty sure all of you are over 18 and probably at least see where I'm coming from, if not agree with me. If you're under 17 or 18 then
MY APOLOGIES, YOU ARE CLEARLY AN EXCEPTION AND ARE ONE VERY COOL AND INTELLIGENT TEENAGER. BUT in general, teenagers are crazy and hard to talk to.
So, I'm 20 now. While you and I continue to age and mature, Gaia's target audience remains the same age. Gaia isn't going to grow up with us. It's always going to appeal mostly to 14-17 year olds. What this means is that, some of your friends who are older than you, or are the same age, will inevitably grow out of Gaia. Eventually there will be less and less people your age on gaia, or at least in B/C, and you're going to have to find friends that are much younger than you. And personally, I feel awkward as ******** RPing with a kid. (Even if it is a totally non violent and innocent RP, I still feel weird about it.)
The other part is that I'm extremely tired of having a bad reputation on this website because of the stupid s**t I did as a child. I feel like this is one of the reasons AoA hasn't done too well, is because I am known to a lot of popular people in B/C as being a huge a*****e. I'm STILL a huge a*****e, but I'm a whole lot better at conducting myself in a civilized and adult manner.
This goes hand in hand with the whole teenager issue. B/C was a lot more serious to me back then compared to what it is now. (I know that's ironic since I'm leaving it because of assholes but whatever.) Getting a pet and getting a breeding was a HUGE DEAL to me back then. I would hold grudges for MONTHS AND MONTHS because someone else would get a pet I wanted. I would throw a huge fit in thread when I didn't win. That's just what teenagers do. (I'll be the first to admit that my internet behavior was particularly bad, though.) Now, if I don't win, I genuinely do not care. I might be bummed out for a few minutes but I get over it quick.
AoA is a fairly mature shop. Adz (or Slicci as it was then called) started out as a ******** B/C shop with basically no premise or storyline. I made it for a few reasons. 1: I wanted to color pets. 2: I wanted to own a shop and have a chance at the B/C fame-game. 3: I wanted to be in a shop where most of the population wasn't mad at me. I've grown up and, obviously, so has Adz. I definitely wouldn't recommend AoA to someone in Gaia's target audience. It's got a ton of adult themes while still being PG-13. It deals with politics and slanders religion (I mean basically we're saying ALL RELIGION IS WRONG), it's a wonderland of homosexuality, not to mention the incest... All incredibly unpopular conversation topics, and while I love pushing the margin and challenging Gaia social norms... The sad fact is that people that might enjoy this are people that are my age. As we get older, they're getting less and less frequent. And honestly, if a kid comes in here, we're going to end up alienating the ******** out of them whether we mean to or not. And, we have. Plenty of times. That's just the cold hard truth. We aren't a "collect pretty horses and do nothing with them" kind of shop.
Finally: Gaia's rules are way too much. I think the themes of AoA push that boundary more than I'm comfortable with. I would rather be on a website where I can enforce my own rules and run my RP/shop the way I want to without feeling like I'm constantly walking on eggshells because I've broken a stupid rule. (Like our fertility totem being based off a real life
statue and being banned because it has breasts.) While our forum isn't going to allow smut and all that, it's not going to be a strict as Gaia. I want to RP and relax without worrying about some mod yelling at me.
I'm proud of AoA though. I worked hard on it. AoA had an extremely good life here on Gaia. Most of the time, RP heavy shops like this don't last two long. We lasted what, three or four years? That's pretty damn good. It's time to move onto a new frontier, however. Now, we have our own domain, and I've made the forum damn beautiful. I hope that everyone will be able to enjoy it as much as I am.
I'll always have warm feelings about Gaia, but unfortunately the time has come that I leave it behind. I might return just to play around with the events (hell, I still log back onto Neopets to do the Advent calendar for Christmas) but I don't forsee myself taking part in any forum or guild activities. Especially nothing related to B/C.
TL;DR: I want to become a professional artist. I want to start writing my webcomic and have no time to draw a bunch of stuff for AoA. I'm too old for Gaia. I loathe the B/C community. AoA is too mature for Gaia and I'm afraid of alienating people. Gaia is full of teenagers and I don't like teenagers. I think thats it?
Anyway: Click this. This is the new boards. It's super pretty and I'm proud of it. I hope you like it as much as I do.
It's not 100% finished obviously, but feel free to start chatting and setting up your journals or whatever you want.
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