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Good riddance. All an instance acting like a walled garden does is hurt the entire space, and that doesn’t just apply to beehaw.
Side note; what the hell do you have against serial experiments lain? It’s weird that it’s on the list thrice, and I didn’t even know there were new sites about lain, so thanks for that i guess.
Ever play a TTRPG? Give it a try, if you live in an actual civilized place you probably have a local game store and they almost certainly host games. If you live in absolute nowhere like me you could probably find local groups online. And to be clear I’m not talking about dungeons and dragons, despite what people say the ruleset isn’t new player friendly (it’s complicated, the books are poorly edited, missing rules, it’s expensive, etc. etc.).
Try out World (or Chronicles) of Darkness, at a base level they are easier to understand than any other ttrpg i have ever played (with lots of room to get more out there as you play) and it’s got a large community (as far as niche hobbies go). Oh and it’s cheap, Chronicles is best about respecting your money, but generally you only need to buy a single book (the rulebook for the creature you are playing as).
Pathfinder is also a good choice as the second most popular ttrpg and they offer their rules for free online. the second edition is simpler but it does front load a lot of information on you at once (which is a good thing, you won’t have to go looking for edge case rules that don’t exist). First edition is also really good, but it’s more complicated and you might be less likely to find games since the second edition came out.
War gaming could also be a good way to meet people, but i don’t do that as much so i have less recommendations to offer, I’m afraid.