#adding all of op's tags because they're such an important part of the post ->

[fionnemrys]

THIS!! Every damn word!

There's a fantastic fic that explores some of this as Kara processes her grief and learns how to live on Earth and camouflage herself as human. I highly recommend it.

moments in the woulds by @lovepotionnumber5

One of the (so many I can’t even begin to name them all) worst failings of CW Supergirl is that they just made her the female version of Clark Kent. Then they put Superman as this absentee patriarchal figure that’s a towering paradigm of goodness and righteousness casting a shadow over Kara where she felt like she had to live up to his example.

It’s absolute bullshit. They bullied her into a corner, into a position of inherent weakness (because she’s a woman) when SHE is supposed to be the freaking star, and they never let her out. I don’t care about her “beating Superman in a fight”. That’s not where true power comes from. It’s not about true strength of character. It’s lazy and stupid and forced. Kara and Clark are so different. I wish they’d shown that. That’s where the really interesting character study lies.

There should have been more friction between Kara and Clark. More awkwardness. More just not knowing what to DO or how to BE around each other. Not just because of his abandonment/complete absenteeism. (Though that was a hard plot line to swallow. Not to mention having JIMMY OLSEN be the one man to show Kara the ways of the world as her “watcher” and show her the Fortress of Solitude? Are you kidding me? It was condescending and infantalizing. She was a GROWN ADULT and he was human). If Clark, for whatever asinine reason, really had to refuse to show Kara a little about his life as Superman and where the last remains of her HOME WORLD existed, she would have found it on her own when she was 15 or something. She’s got superpowers and she’s a literal genius with an IQ beyond pretty much anyone on Earth (another thing they conveniently chose to ignore in the show). As if she wouldn’t have discovered those things even without Clark.

But what I find so egregiously lacking in Kara as a character, is that by making her the female Clark Kent, they erased all sense of her identity as a Kryptonian. We could have had such a brilliant and interesting exploration of how Kara handles things differently as a Kryptonian than a human. How differently she views the world. How her lens is different than the people around her. ESPECIALLY CLARK.

Instead of Kara suffering in Superman’s shadow as a thinly veiled, clumsy, and unimaginative metaphor for women in a patriarchal society, I would have liked to see Kara be totally unfazed by it. Like a silly little bullet pinging off her. In her eyes, it would just be a byproduct of a low class civilization that hasn’t caught up to advanced society yet and it’s one of the many things she has to put up with on Earth. Her whole being would just be a casual defiance to it, she wouldn’t have the patience or even bat an eye, but the Kara we got in the show was definitely framed to stay within the box of Earth’s patriarchal norms.

Kara is an ALIEN and she came to Earth as a teenager. Her world view was already well-formed at that point and she would have had to adapt, but I wanted to see more of Kara the headstrong, proud, willful, even arrogant Kryptonian rather than Kara the cowed little alien people-pleaser, camouflaging to near invisibility to fit in. Clark was raised in hiding, he never knew a different life, but Kara did! She had already lived years not having to hide and she had a greater sense of self than Clark ever would.

I would have been far more interested to see Kara be frustrated with Clark for totally different reasons. Example: Everyone loves Clark? Yes, it bothers her. Everyone loves Superman? Yes, it gets under her skin. So maybe Alex mentions something about jealousy or James says something about envy and Kara EXPLODES. She’s not jealous. She’s not envious. No, she’s ASHAMED OF HIM.

“None of you understand. Not a single person on Earth gets it. You all view him as an alien, but you don’t have a clue…not a clue, just how much more of a human he is than he will ever be Kryptonian. Kal-El may be from Krypton, he may be my cousin by blood, but he is not one of us. He has no idea what it would even mean to be one of us. Yet, everywhere I look, he is the one this planet sees as the representative of my home, the Last Son of Krypton, but he is not Krypton’s son and he never will be. I despise him for it as much as I pity him for it. And it’s all my fault because I was supposed to be the one to save him from that. He is my failure and I can never change that.”

Just one example of something I would have liked to see get explored with Kara Zor-El. But nah.

[idoodlestuffsometimes]

Brother's Keeper AU:

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How did Caleb live so long? How can he still be here after 400 years?

A: Belos wanted him to stick around and so he made it happen. As for specifics: *shrugs* your guess is as good as mine! This is something I've preferred to leave up to the readers. I will simply confirm that he isn't hiding any goop powers or OP palisman-given magical abilities. He is, for all intents and purposes, a regular human who is somehow really, really old.

Q: If Caleb is still alive, where did Hunter come from?

A: The full story here hasn't been told yet, but you may notice Caleb is missing quite a few bones...

Q: Caleb's ears are pointed! Did Belos cut them??

A: Correct

Q: Does Caleb know about the Collector/the basilisks/Belos' plans?

A: Probably! He's been Belos' sounding board for 400 years. Access to things that could "further corrupt him" or provide him a tool for escape, however, are off limits, so there are many things, like the Collector, that he's heard about but never seen for himself.

Q: Where's Flapjack/Amity/Darius/etc?

A: This is basically a canon divergence. If you haven't seen a particular character, it's safe to assume for now that they're up to whatever they were doing in canon.

Q: I don't get it. Why is Caleb insane?

A: I suggest you reread the first few story posts, my friend! You have fallen for Belos' lies.

Q: Do you have a posting schedule? When will the next part come out?

A: There is no posting schedule. I draw (mostly but not always) traditionally in my free time, for the fun of telling a cool story, and some posts are longer than others. That means the timing of the next post depends on how long it is, how much time I have, and whether or not I'm at home with access to my scanner. Sometimes this means I post quickly. Sometimes it means you'll see me next month. Sorry about that.

Just know that if I know there's going to be an extended wait, especially one where I'm not actively working on the next drawing, I will make an announcement about it. If you haven't seen an update in a while but I also haven't said anything, it's almost definitely because I'm actively chipping away at a part of the story that's taking me longer.

Q: Why do some of the story posts have a letter after the number? Are these less important than the regular story posts? Can I skip them?

A: No, I Do Not Recommend skipping them! They are just as important as the others. They have a letter on the end because they were added later and I use letters as a way to avoid renumbering everything. If you see story posts labeled something like "3, 3A, 4", they are meant to be read the same as you would if they were "3, 4, 5".

Q: Can I make art/fic/cosplay of this au?

A: Knock yourself out! If you post it somewhere, please include credit, but otherwise I don't mind, and actually love seeing what you do with it! If it's NSFW though, please keep it in appropriate spaces with proper warnings.

Q: Wait there's fic/fanart?? Can I see?

A: If you look through the tag on my blog "BK fridge gallery" you can browse any content shared with me that I've reblogged. :) People are free not to share it with me too though, and there are some I don't reblog, especially if its gorey or suggestive, so you might be able to find a bit more elsewhere under the Brother's Keeper AU name if you look for it.

You may also notice I have a featured tag called "BK Soundtrack." That's for songs that people have suggested to go with the AU. You are welcome to browse or suggest songs of your own ;)

Q: :( I sent an ask but you didn't answer. Did you get it?

A: Probably, yes. Sometimes it takes me a few days to get to it. However, if it was theorizing about future plot points, I may actually be holding onto it with plans to answer at a more appropriate time. I like to keep many of my plans for the story close to the chest, so don't be surprised if your theory ask disappears only to show up many months later when the story has progressed to a point where I can give you a more in depth answer.

[socialjust-ish]

I reblogged this post, and @butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway responded. I think it's an interesting topic worth discussing, but butts has asked that we not fill up the OP's notes with giant discourse posts. I agree.

Here is a link to butt's response. Below the "read more" is my reply, because it is long and I am not going to ruin your dashboards.

Under what other fundraising circumstances have you asked people to perform their vetting in public for your approval (as opposed to the more traditionally accepted practice in community organizing of providing outlines that describe some but not all of your vetting procedures outside of the context of any specific call for funds)?

I generally work off the assumption that a fundraising post on Tumblr is a scam. Tumblr's search feature is not the best and I am even worse at tagging posts, so I don't have an easy way to search my blog.

But, on July 9th, I reblogged this post, about someone asking for help with a gofundme. I was, full dislcosure, in a sentimental mood and real sad. And the story got to me. So I reblogged it uncritically.

But here are the tags I made:

Maybe not the clearest indicator of "buyer beware" but the intent was for me to say "I believe these people, but you should do your own homework and be warned my belief is because I'm a sucker for a mom post."

Even with that context though, and with fully believing the post, I thought the responsible thing to do was warn anyone who saw the post that my reblog was unverified.

Because what you’re describing as “vetting” is, in fact, what I learned in my organizing work as “modeling vetting procedure for educational reasons” and includes getting the explicit consent of all involved to perform (in part due to the violative and invasive nature of most vetting techniques and approaches) the process in full via case study. This, notably, is not something that can ethically be done for anonymized public consumption, because literally no one would consent to their entire case study being made publicly available forever on the internet, and therefore cannot be ethically performed. Which is WHY the other, traditionally accepted, practice exists. To offer broad spectrum reassurances to an anonymized audience about the fact that vetting of fund calls is being performed, without unethically dumping a person’s entire life online during one of the most traumatic moments of their life.

So, first off, my wording may have been a bit poor, here.

I wrote that vetting is:

"Vetting is reviewing their information and disclosing what was reviewed and how it was validated."

What I should have said, for precision, was

"Vetting is when someone reviews the post's information. That person then discloses what type of material was reviewed (e.g., they spoke to them in person, they met over video chat, they have only spoken by text) but not necessarily the specific details of said material, and how it was validated (e.g., I met in person, I demonstrated it was a live feed, they had one witness with them, the photo includes a newspaper of today's date)."

So that's totally my bad. I shouldn't post on my phone.

My example of vetting was just that, an example. I wasn't suggesting that needed to be done for every case. I also probably shouldn't have added the last line about "here is the video for you to see."

But it's important to remember the context of these fundraisers: These people are already sharing their names, family members health conditions, and photographs of themselves online. It is not any more onerous or invasive for them to post a ~5 second video saying "Hey, it's me." These are non anonymized sources.

They're also, again, asking for five-figure sums of money. Some level of skepticism should be allowed and encouraged.

So I will ask again, being extremely clear about what I am asking and why.

First off, this is a snakry comment on my part, but this is not a clear question. It is 173 words long (113 if you end it at the first question mark), contains a few parenthetical tangents, and so many double negatives that I genuinely got a little bit lost. So, I'm going to break it down and answer as much of it as I can, but if you think me breaking it up loses context, feel free to advise.

In what other circumstances have you demanded the unethical revelation of private (and in mamy cases protected) information in order for you to personally verify the vetting process done by the person performing it,

Couple of points here.

As set out above, I believe my clarified definition of what "vetting" constitutes does not require the revelation of private information. It requires an authority figure stating "I have vetted this post, here's how."

If someone is posting a Gofundme online, and it is being "vetted" by a random blogger, the academic standards of ethics and protected information don't apply. You don't get to play the game of "This example of 'vetting' only works in an academic setting as an example" and simultaneously expect regulations and ethical standards used in the context of academia to apply. There is no "protected information" in the context of these fundraisers. These are anonymous people publicly asking for money from strangers. People considering providing funds can ask whatever questions they want to satisfy their respective level of skepticism.

I haven't ever demanded this information - even in my post above (because I gave an example of one method that vetting could include that disclosure =/= that's the only way to vet something) - because I don't typically donate to gofundme pages. But generally speaking, I demand this information for anything I do donate to. I once got scolded by a fundraising person on the street because I asked what portion of my donation would go directly to the charity, and what portion was a commission their contracting company received.

vs accepting their public conversations about tactic and technique (whatever else may be debateable about 90-ghost, it is NOT debateable that he has openly and publicly discussed his vetting process, even if he declines to publicize specific case studies, per ethical aid guidelines) as confirmation of process that you are within your rights to trust or not trust, but NOT within your rights to claim aren’t actually being done just because they are not being done for public consumption?

I did start my post by writing:

The entirety of the rest of them are just reblogs from 90-ghost. Of those reblogs, I think only two have 90-ghost saying anything, and all they say is "this is legit".

I'm not suggesting 90-ghost needs to publicly disclose the information of each family they supposedly vet. I was suggesting they need to do something other than tacitly reblog it.

I don't know who 90-ghost is. If you go to their page, their pinned post is a request for help for their personal fundraiser.

Their sidebar has two links, one to their twitter, one to their instagram. His Instagram post has two photos on it, one from 11 weeks ago, and one from 2014. His twitter appears to be more personal - sharing and reposting news about the war. A lot of it is not in English, and I'm a loser monoglot, so I don't know what is or isn't being said there.

But to the point: You cannot figure out how 90-ghost vets their posts easily. Despite your claim that it's "not debatable he has openly and publicly discussed his vetting process." It's actually pretty difficult to find. In fact, I can't actually find any posts of his explaining it. It might be easy if you follow him or are actively engaged with this community, but I'm not commenting on this because I follow him, or even OP. I'm commenting because I saw it on my dash.

Here's what I was trying to suggest was needed instead of these blank reblogs.

"Hi, I am 90-ghost. I have vetted this fundraiser. To learn what my vetting process constitutes, see this post [link to a post.]"

The silent reblog and the assumption it's vetted is what I take issue with, here.

If thus is NOT an ask you have made in other circumstances, can you explain to me what *specifically* about this set of circumstances means that the traditionally accepted public-facing vetting procedure discussion is inadequate,

Because charity scams, specifically charity scams related to Gaza, have exploded since October 7th. This is true of every natural disaster, according to Forbes.

and how this has NOT been present in other times when you have interacted with or spoken on the process and procedure of redistributing funds?

Two points here.

I don't typically interact or speak with the process of redistributing funds. I interact with what comes up on my blog. And so I click a link, and see that it's suspicious, and then look into it.

It wasn't until I started seeing posts about the Gaza fundraisers that I became aware of this issue with scam fundraisers. Don't worry, next time a hurricane hits, I'll be just as skeptical about those posts.

Additionally, and this is anecdotal, but you're asking what's different here, so this is the answer.

I reblogged this post on August 2nd. Within one hour of posting it, I had four asks in my inbox from "gazan Gofundmes". Prior to that ask, I had received a grand total of 0 gofundme posts in my inbox. That means one of two things:

Multiple people are watching every single reblog of their posts like a hawk, and critical or not, if a reblog was made, they then go and manually send an ask.

It's a bot network sending asks based on reblogs, like every other bot network on this site.

I deletedthose asks and so they're gone from my inbox, and I can't compare them to the verified list, but I reblogged one post and got four asks for others almost instantly. I assume it's pretty similar for everyone else who reblogs these fundraisers.

Even if they were legitimate, using a botnet to garner attention is... scam-like behaviour, if nothing else.

You have given zero evidence that any of these fundraisers are raising flags of illigitmacy, and are so far merely offering the possibility of illegitimacy and the protection of recipient private info fully in keeping with standard aid procedure ethical guidelines as enough to assume fraudulance.

Again, I'm criticizing the "vetting" done here, and people's apparent willingness to just trust a reblog as an endorsement of vetting. It is exceptionally easy to make hyperlinks on Tumblr. It is easy for 90-ghost or the spreadsheet to simply add a hyperlink saying "Vetting process is here."

The spreadsheet just says "this was researched by us."

What does that mean?

I understand that in the world of mutual-aid communities, you might have shorthand. But you need to understand that if you are trying to send a message to people who don't live in that world (like me) you need to provide some basic definitions and explanations of process.

All I've said (or at least, all I meant to say) in my post is "these "vetting posts" do not clearly explain how the post was vetted. That needs to be done, and people should think critically about why it isn't being done."

If you can, with a straight face, say "hey, silently reblogging a post and having to dig through that person's blog for pages and pages to find the post discussing how they vet things is a good system" then you and I live in different worlds.

That is….a wild speculation on your part that, by your demands, you are ill-equipped to actually validate or support on your own, which tells me you have (heaven forbid) decided to TRUST people in your sphere who tell you that you have cause to doubt these fundraisers,

I clicked a post uncritically reblogging a fundraiser, and went "Oh, these are vetted." I then followed the link to the supposed vetting, that they include, to find that it is a silent reblog from one person.

This was me, following the links on the post, to see how they vetted the post. And I was lead to that every time.

The post said "vetted here." The link it takes me to is not a vetting. It's a silent reblog. Even if we accept your standards for vetting (which I don't think are actually that far off what I consider vetting, I just worded it poorly) these posts don't do that. As I said in my first reblog - literally only two say ANYTHING, and it just says "this is legit."

That's barely any information at all. These people are asking for upwards of $50,000. If 90-ghost is trying to advocate for them, the least he can do is put in the 30 seconds of work to make the posts not look like scams. It's bad advocacy, if nothing else.

even though you yourself visibly lack the understanding of how that doubt should or even WOULD in aid work be put to rest.

Just to be clear, I fully accept the premise that if someone trusts 90-ghost, and 90 ghost says "I have vetted this post." then that's enough to justify donating.

What I'm saying is that a wordless reblog or "it's legit" is not proof of any of that happening. And if people from inside the community think that's convincing to the outside community, they are either naive, intentionally hoping people don't click the links to check, or some third reason.

If 90 ghost had a link at the top of the blog saying "Hey! Here is how I vet a post. If I reblog a post, it is a direct endorsement of this vetting procedure." I would be satisfied.

It's that they're operating on, apparently, an unorganized chain of faith that makes the "vetted HERE" links completely misleading. To figure out how 90-ghost vets posts, you have to dig through hundreds of their posts. To consider a quick hyperlink to a wordless reblog a valid source of vetting is unreasonable, in my view.

So my follow up question, once you’ve answered the earlier ones, is how are the conspiratorial accusations you are leveling here any different from the blind trust you are accusing others of having in things they don’t understand enough themselves?

I'm not entirely sure what the "conspiratorial accusations" here are, but I'm assuming it's my two bullet points re: What 90-ghost could be doing - this part:

There's no reason to trust 90-ghost just because they reblogged the post. How do you know 90-ghost isn't

A) In on the scam;

B) So (rightly) upset that this is happening that they don't care if some of these are scams on the off chance that even 1 is legit, and so are using their goodwill to "vet" posts.

If 90-ghost is doing a thorough vetting, that should be shared

If this is wrong and you're referring to something else, let me know

Again, this may come to me being imprecise in my language, so I apologize.

How I perhaps should have phrased this, is:

"A reblog alone is not enough to confirm a post is vetted. How do I know, from a silent reblog alone, that this post was vetted? If 90-ghost is vetting the posts, he should be sharing that by stating he has done so, and providing information on how he vets posts (again, not the specifics of the vetting for each individual, just a "here are the steps I take" post that is immediately visible and linked in any post he claims to have "vetted").

I don't think that's conspiratorial or unreasonable. I do think that, without that, it is reasonable to make those two assumptions. I don't know 90-ghost, because I don't follow this world closely. These posts are meant to be a "signal boost", so they're meant to go outside the usual circle of followers, right? So you have to assume those people won't know who 90-ghost or anyone else is. So if you want them to trust the process, that process should be explained clearly, consistently, and on each post or fundraiser. An empty reblog does not do this. And the fact that an empty reblog is used as the "vetting" post for every single post except two shows a pattern which is unusual and justifies skepticism.

How is your decision to trust the people undermining the credibility of online fundraisers without understanding enough about EITHER side’s points to convey them yourself with any actual evidentiary support (have you perhaps never actually SEEN the evidentiary support your trusted people claim is responsible for their perspective?) in any way different from the choice of people (knowing the risks) to donate to fundraisers that are being circulated by the Palestinian community and their allies?

Again, you are jumping to assumptions about what made me reblog this, or who I'm trusting. I saw the post, from someone I follow and respect, and saw that it had a bunch of links saying "vetted here." I followed the links, and there was no vetting, and no confirmation of vetting. That frustrated me, because when I read "vetted here" and "please give me money" I expect to be able to... verify the vetting before I consider giving money.

Perhaps they have reasons you have not seen (looked for?) to trust and make their own judgements.

Sure, but words have meaning. And a link that says "vetted here" implies that if you follow that link, you will be given information confirming a post is vetted. To come to the conclusion that "90-ghost reblogging a post = vetted" requires significant time and investment into the mutual aid community that is absolutely not apparent from the link. And so when all you link to are wordless reblogs that, justifiably, raises questions about how skeptical people should or shouldn't be.

Perhaps your condescension goes beyond questioning the capability of Palestinians to know how to organize aid calls and ensure effective distribution, and even extends into believing your fellow non-Palestinians are just too easily duped? Would be just as skeptical of you if they realized how much trust they were putting in another person?

Again, you are making a lot of assumptions from what I think is a pretty simple ask: Provide a clear and easily accessible link to how the vetting process occurs, and specific confirmation that a post was, in fact vetted. A silent reblog does neither of these.

Weird how YOU haven’t seemed to question your trust in the people who started this uptick in shaming of donation posts even though you clearly reference seeing posts that call that trust’s validity into question.

I saw one post, it's been linked above.

I don't actually think I reference any posts that call that trust's validity into question, here. The only thing I do reference is people "blindly" reblogging."

But that was based on the personal observation of someone I follow blindly reblogging the post.

Maybe the problem isn’t that people don’t know they’re choosing to trust someone, but that they have intentionally chosen to trust someone that you have chosen not to, and you cannot tolerate that someone might do that while thinking it was the right choice, because what does that say about YOUR choice if they think that?

Nope! Trust is fine and good.

I take issue with the misrepresentation that the links that say "vetted here" do not, in fact, vet the post.

That's my issue.

I understand donating to any individual fundraiser requires a network of trust, and don't particularly care what degree of trust anyone chooses to use or not use.

But uncritically reblogging a post with a dozen "vetted here" links, of which none actually provide any information on the vetting, is bad and silly.

I suppose saying it's suspicious is probably unfair. I try to follow the "never assume malice when stupidity would suffice" rule. But like... it's either malicious or stupid to think that's an adequate "vetting" - ESPECIALLY when trying to convince outsiders to the community to donate.

Again, imagine you are me: Someone not involved in this community. You have sympathy for Palestinians wanting to flee the country. A post comes across your dash which says "these fundraisers have been verified." You click the "vetted here" button. You are taken to a silent reblog of a post. You go, "okay, maybe this 90-ghost person is some sort of authority." You click to get to their home page. It has no links discussing how, why, or what criteria they use to vet posts. It also doesn't make it clear if a reblog is a "vetting" or just an endorsement. There are two posts in the list where 90-ghost says "this is legit." Why didn't he say that on the other ones? Are the other ones not legit? Has he only vetted the ones he explicitly says "These are legit"? If so, why do only two of these meet the criteria? What does 90-ghost do to vet these posts?

Do you see why that's an issue?

Or maybe you really do just think your fellow non-palestinians are too stupid to know that vetting processes are literally always about deciding who it is worth it to you to trust and making the most of a situation that can literally never be made asshole-proof?

Again, I understand this about vetting processes. My gripe is that a wordless reblog provides ZERO information to suggest anything has been done.

Feel free to just say that next time. It’ll be faster, and you’ll irritate fewer people in the process.

I think I've said it a few times, but just for total clarity:

If someone says they are vetting a fundraiser, they should set out:

Their methodology for doing so (again, not revealing the actual information they received, just what type of information they do receive);

A quick statement that confirms that specific post has been vetted so you can tell which posts are vetted, and which are sympathetic; and

Make access to the vetting process easily discoverable (e.g., a pinned post, a link in the reblog, etc.)

Failure to do these warrants skepticism, especially when the call for aid is meant to be broadcast outside of the community that already knows this information.

[cacodaemonia]

I'm not adding to this to argue with anyone, and idk what op's follower count is like, nor do I care. But I would like to comment on two parts (second part is under the cut):

people don't come here to network, and it's a little strange to look at your followers purely as a means of distributing your own content.

Some people do. That was why I joined Tumblr in like 2010 when I was doing freelance illustration. It's quite literally an income stream for some artists who do commissions.

For the majority of us who are not hoping to support our livelihoods by sharing work on Tumblr, the complaints regarding low interaction are not about 'distributing our own content.' I've said it a dozen times and seen other people say the same thing: it's about having some sense of community and shared interests with people—not pointless numbers of likes on a post.

I couldn't care less about likes on Tumblr or kudos on AO3; if someone enjoys what I made for my own enjoyment and then decided to share free of charge, what's wrong with me wanting to hear from them? Most artists (including gif makers, podficcers, etc.) and writers on this site aren't here to churn out 'content' for randos who give nothing back. We're here because we love a thing and want to share our creations with other people who love it and will scream about it with us.

I just... don't understand why that seems unreasonable to some folks?

whether you're an artist or a memeposter or just a regular fucking person with 12 followers, YOUR own followers are your primary audience. as in, the people who saw your art and liked it so much they decided to stick around. and those people are very likely sharing your stuff anyway.

I 100% agree, except they're not sharing it. And I have no idea what it's like for other people who have shared art or fics on Tumblr, but over the past few years, I've still been getting lots of followers. And yet, things like reblogs and comments have only gone down. I'd say that, by the time I stopped posting my stuff on Tumblr about six months ago, I was usually getting far fewer than 100 reblogs on fan art (even days or weeks after posting them), which is about 2% of the people who followed me at that point. And most of those reblogs had no tags, so they were still very impersonal.

So no, I don't expect people who don't follow me to interact with the things I share. But I'd much rather have 100 followers who actually treat me like a human being than thousands who take and never give back.

That's why I like AO3 for sharing fics and art: so far, at least, the attitude of, "I deserve fics and art without even acknowledging the people who make it" hasn't permeated the community over there as much.

Finally, I'm not even writing all this for my own benefit; with the exception of a few events, I don't share my work here and don't plan to start again. But I think it's important for Tumblr users to try and consider all this from the perspective of people who are still sharing their creations here.

Imagine if someone irl said they like the things you make, and you just finished something, so you run over and show it to them. How would you feel if they looked at it and just walked away without a word?

Sure, participation isn't compulsory, but fandom wouldn't exist if everyone acted that way. :/

i agree that its a little strange to see just how big the discrepancy is between active users who post and reblog things and passive users who limit themselves to liking posts and/or voting in polls... but i also resent this idea of like. compulsory participation.

if people want to lurk, let them lurk. does it align with the core idea of a microblogging platform? not really, no. but tumblr is a public website and maybe its high time for some people to get more comfortable with the idea that you're always going to have a silent, invisible audience on the internet, who will read and watch and look at and listen to your stuff without making themselves known. thats the main difference between closed social networks like facebook, where you have total control over who sees what, and (semi) public platforms like tumblr.

yes, the whole like/reblog ratio thing has gotten worse recently, and im sure there are a lot of newcomers who simply aren't sure how to get started with a blog of their own (it definitely took me a while to start reblogging things when i first joined. and it was another few years until i eventually started making my own posts lol) and its good to encourage them, but i dont see how guilt tripping people is going to change anything, especially wrt artists

people don't come here to network, and it's a little strange to look at your followers purely as a means of distributing your own content. whether you're an artist or a memeposter or just a regular fucking person with 12 followers, YOUR own followers are your primary audience. as in, the people who saw your art and liked it so much they decided to stick around. and those people are very likely sharing your stuff anyway. next come the people finding your posts via tags. but anyone beyond that point--your followers' followers, and their followers--those people aren't part of your immediate community. they're random strangers who are here to curate their own little blog in whatever way they like. they're individuals with particular interests and preferences and not simply an abstract ~audience~ waiting to be fed. this idea that people who come across your stuff outside of your own little bubble, and like it, then somehow also owe you a reblog is incomprehensible to me. every single day i see art on my dash from fandoms i dont know and dont care about. and sometimes i click like just because it's well-made. that doesnt mean i want it on my blog

[glimmering-brainfamily]

hgfhgf ok this was all supposed to just sit politely in the tags but apparently tumblr has a tag limit so it's going under a readmore instead I'm really sorry

jewblog criticises op for centering their own experiences so I hope adding mine in the tags is alright. but I do think they are illustrative of jewblog's point

I'm an atheist (agnostic. its complicated), and my parents very deliberately raised me to be atheist. They'd both had christian upbringings themselves but neither of them were very pious, and my dad in particular was a staunch exchristian athiest. so growing up I was not put into a catholic school (despite those being cheaper and easier to access, and often being held to a higher standard of education than secular public schools in australia)

Even then, the secular public school had a 'religious studies' class that needed a parent's note to opt out of (which mine did). This class was pretty much just bible studies taught by a pastor. Only xtianity (specifically catholic xtianity but who's counting?).

Basically the point I'm driving home here is that my parents did e v e r y t h i n g in their power to raise me atheist. They fought the System tooth and nail. Buuut. School holidays each year revolve mainly around easter and christmas. The families of other kids all had christmas trees in their homes, and organised easter egg hunts in their backyards, so of course my parents had to do the same thing otherwise they'd feel like barbarians.

And obviously while I never had to go to church I knew what a church is. A lot of literature and media would talk about religion (xtianity) or had religious (xtian) themes, a lot of nonreligious people use religious (xtian) language and themes as a way to express really big or profound feelings or ideas... I really couldn't help but absorb a lot of it through cultural osmosis. Which is how you get to the kind of culturally christian atheist headspace where you're like, 'well even I know that cain killed abel with a rock because cain was jealous that abel gave god a better offering, everyone knows that', 'yeah abraham was commanded to sacrifice his son isaac and was gonna go through with it before being stopped by an angel. everyone knows that one'

I didn't read any of that in a bible or get taught it in school! I just know it because the entire world has been built in such a way that it's really hard not to know at least some of it!!! and you know what??? this fully does not apply to any religion other than christianity. did you know that I only just learned TODAY what a rabbi actually does??? I always thought a rabbi was roughly analogous to a pastor or priest. it wasn't until I saw a post, I think by vaspider, where it was exasperatedly but politely explained that a rabbi is more like... a professor or teacher of jewish laws. like an expert to consult about stuff you're unsure about or make sure important events adhere to jewish law. and that's it!!! they're not ordained by god to have special prayer powers or whatever, this block of tags has gotten so so so long lmao sorry well it's not tags anymore but im still sorry

but you gotta understand when people talk about cultural christianity, they're not precisely talking about you- well they sort of are but only in the sense that you exist and are part of the world, like. cultural christianity is 100% a societal thing. and the society for humans is THE WORLD. IT'S THE WORLD!!! TURN YOUR HEAD THERE'S JUST MORE WORLD TO LOOK AT!!! YOU CAN'T BLOCK IT OUT IT'S THE FUCKEN WORLD!!!!!!

and yeah it's not the whole world but unless I uproot my whole life and move to a country that doesn't speak english it's going to be MY whole world for the rest of my life. so. yeah.

it's wild because you don't start really seeing it until after you've been quietly listening to your jewish friends for a while and you realise you're living in the culturally christian matrix

Things I would prefer to be called rather than “culturally christian”

+ Raised christian

+ Has a christian background

+ Exchristian

These still acknowledge a person’s history with christianity while also respecting the fact that they have left it. Hope this helps!