True. We can also expand rps if we wanted to see if we can start smth anew maybe.

Plus how would we even open up to the public more anyways?

There are places/servers/sites/etc to advertise stuff like this. The easiest thing to do would be to overhaul the Discord server, make that public, and use things like Disboard and hub servers to drive people in that way and have rp stuff in the boardhost and more casual social things in a server (this wouldn't replace chat threads or homethreads or stuff like that). Some people host roleplays entirely in a Discord server. I hate doing this, especially with something with a world this expansive that relies almost entirely on jump-in threads and not actual locations. I think this rp does best in a forum setting where people don't feel the need to reply immediately and is more asynchronous

My thoughts are only half-formed on this, if it's something we wanted to pursue I could look into it. I think having this place be more active would help me stick around more lol

Skimming it, it looks like they have fairly limited collaborative stuff : ( oh well

I'm pretty sure this place being rather active would help everyone stick around more.

I too love the asynchronous forum like design. 100% for sure.

As to World Anvil, I've heard of it, and I've even checked it out, but I am not too familiar with it's rp/forum capabilities

yup ^^ I was lamenting to that friend about getting attacked with ads every time I go onto Fandom for anything and they were like "PLEASE use World Anvil what are you guys doing" but I don't think it works well for our purposes. There's probably something out there that's a decent alternative.

In a perfect world I'd like our information to be stored on its own site so we aren't relying on yet another platform with potential to crumble (not that I think Fandom is going that way anytime soon). Once bitten, twice shy I suppose

i've had ublock origin for like a year and i have never seen an ad in that entire time except for when i turn it off for specific sites

Hii, I've been reading so here's a couple thoughts of mine on the subject:
I think the main reason we're not many people is because the forum roleplay type is very niche to begin with. I've tried inviting people personally and most of them even when they're moderately interested they only check around for a week or so before forgetting about the whole thing. Not saying nobody cares, just that it's hard for someone to be comfortable with the format. In our case we're just used to it because we've always been using posts and forums as a place to communicate and roleplay in, but that level of familiarity with the structure we have is not to be expected from a newcomer. 
Related to that, I believe that the roleplay would not be very popular even with the Discord server being public. The main reason is the structure of Disc roleplays in themselves. People might be interested or casually interested in a roleplay server, but if asked to switch platforms just to get into the main part of the roleplay, I can see them not liking that and just leaving. Of course there's dedicated roleplayers out there (I'm thinking of Quindex with its 1000+ word posts that may take days to reply lol) but in my experience most of the people looking for Discord roleplays are there for quick fun and one-liners and they're already used with the channel-is-one-place structure servers tend to have. In short, I don't think advertising through Discord would be a compatible way to draw in more people. Perhaps one or two, but I doubt it would be popular at all, which means the effort to rehaul the server for newcomers and all might not be worth it. I'm not against restructuring the server for ourselves.
As a personal comment, I would not like for GGaD to become a Discord roleplay.
I think that with time our Boardhost (and even the wiki to some extent) became more of a personal site too. Homethreads, for example, are a bit more private than just the roleplay, and art/writing threads are not published so the whole world can see them. Maybe some people wouldn't mind, but I'm thinking of a possibility that the feeling of privacy could be compromised by letting just anyone see everything we post (though they might not care). For us it's okay since we've known each other for years and thus know what to expect, even being comfortable with more private stuff. Not saying people can't join the "friend group" we have but it's definitely not the same as in the forums because then we knew what people were in the forums for, while nowadays it might be kind of hard to discern what a newcomer might want to do in the Boardhost.

In my opinion our best bet to keep activity going would be to somehow strengthen the bonds between ourselves an d sometimes that's hard because of how we have life stuff going on. If getting more numbers is an issue then I can suggest that you guys invite your friends if they're interested? Not saying it as a must jkffjdlk since for me it was kind of hard to work up the courage to tell them and even then sometimes they're just interested in the idea and not in joining xD but somehow I feel it's more comfortable and organic to have someone who's already a friend of yours join into another community you're in. Because of the way we manage our privacy and posts, I think that's the safest idea.
I want to point out that I am not against letting more people into the Boardhost. I do like interacting with others, but for the reasons mentioned above I'm not sure it's the greatest idea to open up the place like that (it would have to come with some sort of filter) and I feel it would be hard to get people to join in the first place. Meanwhile, we have each other, and we can try to figure out fun stuff to do to keep up our activity :D

Also hi, had a little hiatus for Thanksgiving but I should be back to rock and roll. I have a tilemaking class this section and I'm not sure how much time that's going to take up but I'm super stoked to be back working with clay again. I haven't been able to do anything since before COVID and I'm hoping it'll lift my spirits a little bit. I've been feeling a little isolated lately (some of that is my fault) but I'm going to be working with friends! 

I'm really looking forward to being able to turn my brain off and slam 40 pounds of clay around

Well, private, yes, but there is guests and stuff that pass through. It's weird.

I'll consider it

Tilemaking going well! My carpal tunnel is flaring up but I'm doing what I can to mitigate it. I have a bad habit of dropping off the face of the earth during 3-weeks so my irl friends never see me (the class consumes me and it becomes my entire reason for being) but people are coming into the studio to pay me a visit and do their work with me. I forgot how fun it is to work with my hands on clay stuff. The last time I got to touch clay was this summer and I wasn't doing anything creative, I just spent 5 days straight trying to reclaim a bucket of clay that had been sitting out for a year. It feels really good to actually make something instead of just slamming 40 pounds of clay into a picnic table to beat it into submission

Also also went to the eye doc last week for the first time in 5 years (one of those lingering health things I needed taken care of) and guess who technically qualifies for glasses 


What I thought were photosensitive migraines may be exacerbated by the fact that I have a (very mild) astigmatism in one of my eyes. I had noticed a discrepancy in my vision in like... April of this year when I was doing a test at the DMV but I completely forgot about it until I was actually sitting in the appointment. Now I'm hyperaware of it and randomly notice when I look at things that I can like,,, split my vision and tell which eye is looking at something?? It's very disorienting, like looking through badly fitted binoculars

It should be okay, it's so mild that while I could get glasses, I function perfectly fine without them. I still have 20/20 vision, one of my eyes is just a little blurry but my other eye compensates just fine. 

The most I'd probably do is get some blue light blocking glasses to help with my eye fatigue looking at screens. I think it'd also help with focusing when looking at stuff up close. I've noticed I've started to get headaches looking at my projects for too long. I cranked out 12 tiles today and I was having a hard time doing any fine detail towards the end, both because of my head hurting and my old man joints lmao. It's cold in there and I was standing for multiple hours at a time cutting slabs and hauling 60lb buckets around so my knees aren't doing too hot, but it's nothing a handful of Tylenol and rotting in my bed for a couple hours didn't fix. I've started making custom grips for my tools out of scrap clay which seems to really help the strain on my wrist/fingers. I didn't want to use my braces or compression gloves because they'd get ruined so I'm glad I found a good solution.

When I have time tomorrow I need to do battle with Financial Aid and my college's registrar because they're trying really hard to make my registration for classes next semester not work at all and that would royally fuck up just about everything

I did win against Financial Aid. I had to ask to see an actual person who worked there. The student worker manning the desk was actively unhelpful, but I got everything sorted out. That kind of stuff takes a lot out of me. I ended up just laying facedown on the floor in my room for a couple hours after the fact, but I did it nonetheless : )

I think I'm gonna take most of this weekend to rot away in my bed and ignore some of my responsibilities for a little bit. I need to reset my sleep schedule and myself, it's been,,,, a little interesting with my friends lately.

I know full well I'm not an extroverted person. If I go to a social event sometimes I need a good 3-5 days afterward of no social obligations before I even begin to feel normal. I think that's just the chemical soup of whatever is going on in my brain + my personality. The problem is that most of my friends aren't like that, or they need significantly less time to "recharge" away from people. For me, it's exhausting just to go to a class and exist around other people and anything outside of that is something I have to carefully weigh if it's worth my energy. A lot of the time I'm just completely drained but I still go and hang out with people because I do enjoy being with them but I'm just kinda sitting there watching stuff happen around me

I'm lucky that they understand my needs. I tend to Irish goodbye at social events and they all know I had a good time but I need to go be in carcass mode for a lil bit and they respect it

 I really want to get back into drawing (both physical and digital) because I loved doing it when I was younger but I kind of fell off of it before/during COVID. Every time I try to do anything though, I always end up frustrated. I might just have to start from the very beginning and build myself back up from scratch.

For tilemaking we're doing a couple things:
- I have a couple stamps I carved that we fired in the kiln and I can use them to stamp into fresh clay to make a series of identical tiles. I have three that are different patterns and one that's a monstera leaf, and I think that's probably the favorite thing I've done so far. I've made 16 or so tiles from those ones. 

- I'm also working on a mosaic that's modeled after stained glass and looks like a sunset. The end goal for that is to paint the individual  pieces and then place them in grout so they don't shift around

- I have 3 other tiles that use engobe, which is clay slip with pigment added to it (slip is basically a slurry of clay and water, kind of the thickness of chocolate milk) and you can paint it on to clay. One of the engobe tiles I painted completely and then carved away to reveal the original tile underneath and the other is painted with various engobe colors. Neither are my best work but I don't mind them too much

- I also have 12 tiles that are going to be fired plain and I'm going to paint with glaze on them, then fire them again. I haven't quite planned out all that I want to do with those, but I'm seeing a lot of botanicals in my future. I might also take some requests from my family as I'm hoping to get them done in time for the holidays, but with the pace the rest of the class is going I don't think that will happen unfortunately

I get impatient while waiting for things to dry I usually have to occupy myself and I start sculpting little things. I have a couple lizards and made one for my sibling that can function as a pen/tool holder. I technically didn't ask if I could but the professor has no doubt seen them and he hasn't ripped my head off about it yet. Not that he would, he's a really nice guy and seems delighted to talk about anything I talk to him about. I might ask if he'll fire them if there's space in the kilns (everything I sculpt fits in the palm of your hand and aren't more than a couple inches tall) so they aren't so fragile. 

I've also started carving little turtles out of avocado pits that my friends give me (I don't like avocados so I don't want to buy them specifically for carving purposes haha) and that's been weirdly therapeutic. I don't have my carving tools with me at college so I've been using my multitool and a screwdriver with exchangeable bits that I have and I honestly find it more enjoyable that way.

I'll throw a picture of some of the stuff I've been working on in here if I remember later.