Kotking

Yeah I would agree that for casual conversation Discord overtook for me. I was lurking r/warframe and after losing pc capable running game started gacha and discussed on r/Arknights. So with api fiasco I left Reddit and tried Mastodon… have account and check it out but there is no activity on #arknights , joined discord server for R/Arknights that was made during blackout and still going strong. Like I got better of R/Arknights and not on Reddit. People some use Reddit, some silently, some like me abandoned and even people who never used Reddit joined. Moderating m/Arknights on Kbin but with Kbin dev having unlucky strike and generally hopping he have health to both have normalcy and work on Kbin. So without proper mod tools and some broken features (like webp not displaying, where microblogs from Misskey converts to webp to consolidate space) and some other little wants that I would propose if I knew there would be implemented.

Using Misskey.io before it closed registration to Japanese only (happens when everyone was leaving twitter for Musk dumb thing he implemented). With Misskey at least found artists and players for Arknights but as it is Japanese instance, they only thing I can do is share art so #arknights tag weren’t dead on Mastodon.social .

So TL DR left Reddit, joined sub Reddit discord server which is where I spend most of my leisure time, using Mastodon for news, Kbin for moderation (but no one visits, at least no spam as I clean up) and news , Misskey for fan art.

Everyone gives solid advice, so I will point you to trusty https://fedidb.org/software .
Mostly to see stats of Fediverse but also the soft that is available. Maybe you find one that suit you.

I saw many artists going to Misskey.io because it’s main instance even English speaking ones until they gone back to twitter, stayed on Misskey or half measures. Then because of EN influx in mainly Japanese server , Misskey.io closed doors to non-Japanese add in fact that Misskey or rather any federated service can’t oblige to European Union protection standard which means they can’t operate in EU officially.
So I see lots of messages on Misskey about artists making blue sky accounts as well… All depends where they get more views I guess or have people supporting them around.

Difference between Kbin and Lemmy is how they show their threads. Lemmy does community self boosting that’s why it shows in Mastodon Groups, Kbin does not.
Mastodon working on groups but last I heard about it is in August I think… so nothing yet.
You can manually add lemmy and Kbin threads by posting link into Mastodon search, but again not useful and only when you want to respond not lurking.
I would also want more interactivity with threads as I use my Misskey.io account much more for posting but have to do jump hoops for threads I want to share show up. You can’t make threads to Kbin from Mastodon/Misskey as they are sorted to microblogs, while addressing @ to lemmy community will work to make a thread.
All in all we are yet to have good communication between threads and microblogs, my solution for that is set up Mastodon bot that checks RSS feed of my community/magazine and post whenever new thread is made. Afterwards just copy link from bot in mastodon search and you can view/reply.