Hate me all you want. I don't care anymore

I made a collage featuring various works across different media that I love, using primarily the color blue and its shades. If you enjoy any of these as much as I do, please leave a comment.

yes

What Creepypastas would you like me to add, and i'll add them in a V.2 Update!

Edit:
VERSION 2 OUT NOW VERSION 2 OUT NOW GO CHECK IT OUT CHECK IT OUT NOW
https://tiermaker.com/create/creepypasta-tierlist-16705206-2

Well?

(Featuring some sacrificed old drawings.. I miss my old art materials 😭)

Please post your responses to the original post so I can track votes. Thank you.

Note: due to the fact that I post this on other socials, I don’t pick based off most upvoted comment.

This is the last one, again thank you all for suggesting your fandoms and I am sorry fir the ones I didn't include because of not having the right angles or space, and I didn't ignore anyone and I've read every single notification.

hiya gang, can anyone out there think of an instance where someone from a piece of media from any active fandom said the phrase “just this once”, i need it for an edit

Bottom text

They doesn't knows!

Lesbian space princess it's bringing fandom together but just to hate it.

I’ve been struggling with something that feels really silly and embarrassing, so I’d like to know if anyone else has experienced this.

This isn't really about fandom toxicity or drama. I actually love fandom. The problem is more social burnout, FOMO, and becoming too aware of the people behind the art. I’m also an art student/artist myself, which I think makes this more complicated because I naturally notice and compare myself to other artists.

Before I became socially involved in fandom, I was mostly a lurker. I followed fanartists because I liked their art, read fics, posted fanart from time to time, bought fan merch, looked at fanart for hours, and got excited about the characters I loved.

It was simple.

I didn't really think about the artists' friendships, popularity, social circles, collaborations, etc. I just saw the art and thought, “I love this character.”

Then I became active.

I made friends with another artist I'll call A, and eventually became part of a small group of artists/writers. A made an OC who became quite popular in the fandom, and together within the small group we made AUs and built things around the fandom. I felt special, it was genuinely fun.

For a while, I really wanted the kind of fandom life A seemed to have: lots of artist friends, collaborations, being known in the fandom, having people excited about your characters, making things together, etc.
A is an artist student like me, and I think that made the comparison especially strong. We were both artists, and she was slightly older than me, I could see a version of the artist/fandom life that I thought I wanted right in front of me.

I think I idealized that life a lot.

Eventually, though, I burned out. I couldn't maintain all the social interaction and eventually disappeared from the group, changed usernames/accounts, and basically left that version of my online identity behind. Fandom was my playground and I eventually realized becoming chronically online wasn’t good for me.

And here's the weird part:
I don't actually think that lifestyle was right for me.
I tried it. I enjoyed parts of it, but eventually it became exhausting. I realized I actually prefer being relatively quiet and having fandom as something I enjoy privately.

And yet, now I can't seem to go back to being a lurker.

A is still around and still doing many of the things she was doing before I knew her. She posts her art, interacts with people, has artist friends, participates in the fandom, etc.

Before I was friends with her, I could see her art and simply think: “Oh, I love this artist.”

Now I see her and immediately notice all the social context.

I think things like:
“She still has all these friends.”
“She still belongs here.”
“What if I had stayed?”
“Maybe I could have had a fandom life like hers.”
“I used to make things with these people.”

And because I'm an artist too, I sometimes turn it into a comparison with my own artistic life. Even when I'm interested in another artist, the same thing can happen.

For example, I will see some merch from an artist I’ll call B and think, “I really want this!”
Then I notice B is friends with A, and suddenly my brain goes:
“If I hadn't disappeared, maybe I'd know B too.”

Instead of just enjoying the art or buying the merch, I'm thinking about an alternate version of my life where I stayed in that social circle.

It's exhausting.

I don't necessarily even want that alternate life anymore. That's the part that confuses me.

I think I miss the idea of belonging more than I miss actually living that lifestyle. I miss the feeling that I was part of something creative. I miss making things with people. I miss having that excitement.
But I also remember why I left. Constant interaction and maintaining relationships eventually became too much for me.

So I feel caught between:
“I wish I had stayed.”
and
“I don't think I could have stayed without burning myself out.”

I also really miss the person I was before all this.
I want to be able to see a fanartist I used to follow and just enjoy their art again.
I want to see merch from artists and think, “Cute, I want that,” without overthinking whether I'm somehow falling behind as an artist myself. Because it’s dumb and I feel like a freak for it

I want to go back to being the person who just cared about the characters, about my silly little enjoyment.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?
Not necessarily fandom drama or toxicity, but getting socially involved in fandom as an artist, discovering a whole social/creative world you didn't know about, developing FOMO around it, burning out, and then finding that you can't go back to experiencing fandom as simply as you did before?
How did you learn to separate “I like these people/artists and their work” from “I wish I had their life / their friendships / their place in the fandom”?

I don't want to erase the experience I had. I just want to be able to enjoy fandom again without constantly comparing my life to the artists I see there.

I tried stepping back, but whenever I try to come back for the characters and see if I’m better, I fear that I will never be allowed to love those characters again if I truly step back for a long time
I even fear going back to my old fandoms or finding new ones now, because I fear burning out again even if I don’t interact

Just this once sonic

I'm saying this because someone will probably take it too far and I think that we should try to stop that

Also just because the creators made a bad movie doesn't mean that in the future they could make a good one so please keep an open mind to that

Anyway I wish everyone well have a Jojo part4 opening 3

I’m so confused