#i'm glad that the chance to talk to the tumblr fandom seems to be explaining or clarifying things!

[dovelydraws]

Hi, a different anon (I'll explain why in a moment)

First of all, I wanted to say that your post about the internet being lonely really resonated with me. I'm gonna out myself as a Tumblr veteran here but I remember how Tumblr used to be and it was very different. People would follow other blogs instantly if they saw someone posted or reblogged stuff they liked. Ask games would be going on frequently, people would send messages a lot, or even follow back because idk, I guess it was fun to get to know people?

I came back to Tumblr after a long hiatus and deleting my old blog. Things have changed... A lot. I am on anon because I'm relatively active in a couple fandoms and idk paranoid people read this... But I feel like a lot of previously very welcoming communities have become (pardon my French) circle jerks for the same 5 people who don't care about maintaining a community or welcoming new people into it.

I realise I sounded super bitter here and I don't want you to feel like I'm dumping negative thoughts on you. Your art is awesome, I followed you because you posted stuff about a Pf2e game and stayed for cool stuff. Thanks for speaking up about how things are. I'll definitely be more mindful about interacting with artists and trying to do it more. Have a lovely day :)

I get that, yeah. I've been on tumblr pretty consistently since like... 2013 I wanna say? Because it's been the only social media site I've actually felt comfortable and happy being a part of for all these years. Before I came here I was a deviantart kid, and I remember the reason I made the switch is because a lot of my old deviantart friends had moved here and the site had started to feel very lonely and sterile in its interactions with fellow artists and fans. I'm definitely seeing a lot of similarities in this new feeling of loss of community here, but now there's not really all that many good alternatives. I've always hated instagram, and twitter was never good for my mental health even before musk took over. I've considered uploading some of my work to tiktok, but that also seems like kind of a nightmare, lmao.

I'm happy to hear you discovered me from my pf2e game!!! This campaign has become my hyperfixation for the good part of the last year and a half, I haven't found any other show or series that's been able to hook me out of it. It's kinda difficult being hyperfixated on your own characters, since all "fanwork" has to be made by yourself, lol. This party has meant so much to me, and I've really wanted to share that with other people.

I haven't really had the chance to talk about my "Out of Bounds" project too, though I have uploaded those 4 main character sheets. I've been busy writing the book 1 scripts, albeit slowly, since my full time job has been keeping me pretty mentally drained. I really hope that project will be able to find an audience too once I'm able to get it off the ground!

I'm glad my rambling has maybe inspired some people to be more interactive with the artists they enjoy, lol. I hope you have a lovely day as well!

[bookwyrminspiration]

thank you so much for giving us a chance to talk to the tumblr fandom! Hello! I used to use this tumblr account but haven’t used it in a while. I was active in the Instagram fandom though, and because it seems like the issue of racism was brought up with a LOT of misunderstandings here I thought I could give you a quick rundown of what went on so you understand where the attitude over there came from. (I’ll try not to make it too long)  So as someone else said, @keeperofthelostgrimms is this white girl who made racist TikToks where she mouthed slurs, including the n word, said some racist things about a fan who was black, and said she felt excluded from the kotlc Instagram fandom because she was white and straight. She left her account and made a new one @laurens.booknook . People began calling out the racist experiences they’d had in the fandom— and not just on Instagram. There’s been occurrences in the wiki, on tumblr, pinterest, Reddit, etc. livvysonden, indigoobers on Instagram along with other poc users I saw made a point of telling people that they should feel safe talking about their experiences so they could be talked about. Evidence got out but some users began to anonymously attack Instagram users who are poc, especially artists like nlmarte, furiouslyclicking, (especially those who made fanart of poc headcanons like black Vackers, black Sophie, Latino Keefe) and other poc like indigoobers and livvysonden (calling them rude for intimidating white users and believe it or not, gingers). This was a huge mess but the confessions account handled it by making it so that they wouldn’t post a confession about someone without asking them for permission first. A lot of Instagram users defended the poc while others continue to say they’re scared of being called out as racist or homophobic because they’re white (yes, they’re dumb). All in all, the event caused a conversation of the way white people in the fandom were ignorant towards certain issues. Especially those who defended the racist statement keeperofthelostgrimms made, or who began attacking the poc in the Instagram fandom and telling them to shut up about racism. Some of confessions you may see there are all about that situation! If you’re interested in seeing some that summarize it I’d check confession 1114, 1047, 1040, 974. Pretty much within that range is where the thing happened. So this is why the topic of racism has been prevalent in the Instagram fandom! It has nothing to do with tumblr but more of the experiences people have had. Thank you and I hope this explains something to tumblr users! We think you guys are cool overall and we don’t want any drama! 

Thank you for explaining all this history of the IG fandom! Some peole may know about this, but I think as a whole this is a situation the Tumblr fandom is entirely disconnected from and has no knowledge about.

For anyone who wants to look at those confessions without scrolling through the blog, here are links: 1114, 1047, 1040, 974. And for Tumblr people's reference, the oldest of these posts is only from 11 weeks ago. The most recent is only from 8 weeks ago, so a lot of the IG conversation was recent.

That definitely does give clarity to where the IG fandom would've been/is coming from. At least on the confessions account, you had a much much more recent encounter with discourse than we did, which may have been where those "this stuff always happens" (paraphrased) comments came from that confused us. Because for you it was just a whole other situation right after another, but for us this was the first significant discourse in a long time.

I haven't been in the kotlc tumblr fandom since it's beginning, but I have consistently been here for the past four years straight, and issues like what these confessions talk about aren't something you really see here. That's not to say we're all perfect, but what you're showing is definitely not something we'd be familiar with.

Discussions of racism focus more on (from what I've seen) the series itself and on the asian representation, and occasionally there will be a PSA from someone talking about that and addressing the fandom and appropriate behavior, which everyone is usually very receptive to. That way people can correct themselves if needed before things go too far and a problem arises.

So that's where we're coming from when it comes to the topic of racism. From what I've seen from the entire community, it's got a pretty good track record here so I appreciate you sharing how IG would approach it differently. I want to be very clear here that I'm not saying we're better because we don't have those problems, I'm trying to objectively share the Tumblr side of things so we can better understand where each platform was coming from.

Again, thank you for sharing this! I know I certainly didn't have this background when interacting with everyone, so I'm sure it's the same for some of my mutuals as well. Hopefully some of what I've said can also give a glimpse into our mindset and thoughts, though I don't speak for everyone.

Instagram seems to have a lot of great people as well, so we don't want any drama either :)

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hey Lizzy I want to apologize. I really respect you, but unfortunately in the past that lead to me thinking you could be asked about any SPN opinion and were obligated to answer, no matter if it was wanky or not your ballpark, because you 'obviously knew everything'. That wasn't cool of me. You being a smart person who chooses to share your insights doesn't mean we're entitled to your time and I'm sorry. I hope fandom starts remembering we're all just people soon and you get the chance to relax.

Thank you, sincerely. 

At least for me, though, it’s not been a problem… I have a very quiet inbox compared to some friends here, and I barely get wanky stuff. And so I’m happy to answer a lot of things, basically anything non-wanky, and serious questions about the wanky stuff rather than just people coming to spew their misery at me. Which I rarely get, tbh, since I often don’t answer it, or also I think because I consistently avoid the initial post-episode rush when everyone’s most panicked and urgently needs to yell about everything, I’m more under the radar as a panic response blog because in the 18 hours between the episode and me returning to my dash, people get it out their systems. :P 

I think the problem with anons, though, is waaay more with a mob mentality that once someone is answering a lot of asks they beget more asks either tangential or just because they seem like a blog that answers a lot of asks quickly and efficiently (I think “efficiently” is another reason I don’t get a lot of anons :P), and often the anons start to get very impatient just to ask, rather than to check and see if it’s been asked before. Which is no one individual person’s problem but an issue with the entire system they’re just not helping with. I’m glad people are starting to check themselves because a volley of anons, meant well or not, is a great way to exhaust a blogger and get them defensive or despairing or just feeling like they have no time left to do the stuff they actually enjoy about fandom. (At which point I have wished I COULD take some of that burden off since I have a bunch of free time while I’m in exile from my kingdom or whatever this is) But the emotional burden is waaay worse for others so I absolutely can’t complain about getting the few odd anons. 

Like… I didn’t mind answering 2 asks about where the longing retcon came from in the same week because they were fairly widely spaced, but if I made that post with a link to the tag that would explain everything, and then got 3 anons demanding to know and then there were 5 more by the time i was done answering one, my inbox would feel way worse than it currently does, and as a bonus, answering one would still leave 7 people feeling like I never answered them even when answering stuff that’s literally their question - by not giving their specific ask the attention it feels like they’ve been ignored. 

If you give someone a little while and they still haven’t answered or explained, and there’s no easy to find explanation on their blog, then yeah it’s fine to ask just about anything about their content. Going away and remembering to come back and ask also will clarify to the asker if they actually care enough to do it >.> I have asked one (1) anon question to a meta blog in the entire time I’ve been on tumblr because it was something they kept alluding to and I could not for the life of me find the reason why they did and their tag didn’t have an explanation, just more allusions to it and it was such a specific thing I didn’t know any other blog that would care about it. And I asked after seeing them allude to it about 3 times so I was getting desperate but didn’t want to look silly so I asked on anon :P Anything else I cared enough to ask, I just snooped their blog and saw what else they had to say about the subject, or if it was a fresh hot subject, scrolled my dash and inevitably found someone else talking about it. Or just asked a friend if they knew what was up.

Anyways, anon, I’m glad you’re questioning how asks affect people, and I hope more people at least take some time to remember that this isn’t an instant question and answer service all the meta writers automatically opt into, because people are getting hurt and burned out, but you don’t have to worry about me specifically :) 

I’m still happy to answer most messages. At the moment most of the unanswered stuff I have is actually stuff I just don’t have a clue how to answer except the anons were sharing some idea with me and I’m a terrible person, but I don’t know how to do one line replies where I don’t engage with it beyond like “cool” and “you do you” rather than actually wanky stuff :P Other people here are much better at that than me >.> Maybe I should clear some of that out of my inbox right now tbh. It’s mostly stuff that arrived in the middle of busy inbox days and I just put off answering in favour of stuff that was real questions… THAT’s the burden that weighs me down, not the wank :P 

I really hope that others are starting to at least think about the specific emotional burden they’re asking people for when they bring wank to their inboxes though, because it’s great you’ve started to think about it but as I said it’s a systematic problem of people not thinking about the blogger behind the inbox, and fandoms are wanky places. Choosing not to answer and spread the negativity, or to reply and try and smooth it down a bit, are the only options we have for managing things and I don’t think anyone starts writing meta thinking oh goodie I can’t wait to be responsible for the mood of the fandom. While accidentally putting ourselves in the place of seeming like we know what’s going on. It’s completely unmanageable and I’m looking at it as someone whose entire adolescence was spent as a top of the ladder moderator on a fairly large forum, but it’s completely untranslatable experience. Every single one of us is just another random person in fandom and we ALL have to be responsible for our own behaviour and how we affect others. And even among people you care about or bloggers you admire, you can hurt them just by having a bad day or asking too many anon questions or whatever. 

Anyway I’m gratified you’d send this, and please don’t be scared to send more anons, just read your audience :P If someone seems stressed, try another inbox.