#but also im not like actively participating in any DN servers or community projects or something

[13eyond13]

Would you say the DN fandom is getting more toxic in recent years or has it always been like this? Last time I was here it was over half a decade ago and now I've come back and people are being more aggressive to eachother then before. Especially over ships. I've been and still am extremely into Lawlight (one of my main otps fr fr) but I've been seeing Lawlight shippers be so mean to other (much smaller) ships lately as well as really elitist about "the proper way to enjoy DN" which I don't remember happening this much before. Makes me feel second hand embarrassment as a Lawlight shipper ngl. Was it always like this? Or am I just being dramatic? Asking since you've been here for wayyy longer then me.

Hiya! So the last time you were participating in the fandom was 1/2 a decade ago and would've been around 2019ish?

To be honest I don't feel like I've noticed a HUGE uptick in toxicity or anything, but maybe I'm just not seeing the same posts you are or interacting with the same people as you are?

Honestly the main difference I feel now vs. back then are just that I don't feel as involved in the fandom in terms of answering people's asks about the series or fielding their jokes and takes every day in my inbox and whatnot (I used to get those kinds of asks basically every day, like not just about lawlight but about analyzing the story itself and all that, now I probably only get a couple DN asks a month?) And I am not really sure if that's just because I myself am less involved / not posting much DN content of my own or being exclusively just a Death Note blogger now, or because the fandom is smaller and less active, or moving more to other social media platforms, or just a mix of things? I feel like I'm a bit out of the loop because of that.

Also, my memories of the Tumblr DN fandom in 2019 were kinda that it was MORE dramatic sometimes than I find it now, as in I remember around then there was a small group of people who had really intense stances on certain things and loved to vaguepost about anybody who they didn't like and also dogpile with anon hate on bloggers they would agree to target together in their server or something. I thankfully haven't seen much of that lately, either because those people and I all blocked each other or they've just moved on.

The least dramatic and most laid-back and memey the DN Tumblr fandom ever felt to me was before that, around 2017-2018 maybe. Nowadays I'd say I don't notice a lot of drama, but that it just feels a bit more dead here to me now than terribly toxic, maybe?

However, I do agree that I get embarrassed as well sometimes when I see lawlight shippers get extremely defensive and/or act superior toward people who aren't even attacking them about it, as if this ship isn't by far the biggest one in the fandom already and just a super well known and popular classic ship in general. Going into other fandoms for a bit always reminds me that as a lawlight shipper you're actually pretty spoiled with the amount of great fan content and like-minded people you can find about it out there, and it's not like you have to fight for your life to keep the ship alive or something...