#this is what happens when you've owned your blog since 2012

[cuhven]

name : west. pronouns : she / her. preference of communication :  usually discord but ims work, too. experience / how many years :  started writing on fb in 2012 or 13 & i think i've been on tumblr since like 2014... not as long as i initially thought, but yeah. best experience :  i met @mythsonly on an old multimuse in like 2019 ( i think? idk anymore ) & we plotted descendant oc twins. idk what happened but we basically dropped off the planet for each other but then, on a different blog some time later, we started writing again but neither of us recognised the fact that we already wrote with each other. what a fun story to tell our kids, huh? she's been such an amazing friend & rock in my life since. meeting @dvarapala, @dutyxbound & @blumengeist was also an amazing time for me. you guys mean a lot to me. rp pet peeves : one word responses to plotting ideas or any form of communication, really. it just really sucks to try your hardest to come up with ideas & the other person is just like yeah - the only thing worse than that is when all the decisions are put on your shoulders. like, you've made it clear that there's options and you need a starting point but the other person is just like whoever you want or i'm good with anything. that's nice and all, but it doesn't actually help anything. it makes my anxiety worse, tbh. it's meant to be a collaborative experience, and i think that's forgotten a lot of the time. the ignorance when it comes to tags that clearly say specify muse also sucks. fluff, angst, or smut : well, smut makes me uncomfortable so i don't write it, though i am becoming more comfortable with at least hc'ing and discussing that side of a muse's life with those i'm comfortable with. i generally default to fluff or angst. best time to write : butt crack o'clock - basically, any time i should be sleeping tbh. are you like your muses :  i think it depends on the muse because i have a shit ton of those. i like to think i'm more like my goofy muses, though. the ones that rely heavily on humour because everything else sucks. they generally put their own needs aside or just ignore them completely, and i think that's generally when you can see me most in them.

tagged by : @blumengeist. tagging : the dash.

[userparamore]

feel free to rant more!

what baffles me is that people don't interact with gifsets here but they do on other platforms. a gifset that hasn't reached 1k notes will have a gif with 10k likes on twt. like they have to seek out content here but cannot interact with it here?

i'm just baffled about tv shows and movies. if you aren't part of a big sourceblog, and don't post within the hour, you are doomed... like 10 years ago, with weekly releases, it could sustain a fandom for the whole 7 of days, not just one hour.

bahahah i will 😌 you've enabled me now

tbh i use twitter very rarely so i have no idea if people steal my gifs and repost them there. but i'm 100% sure it's happened bc i know it happens to me here regularly. i hate when it happens. it's super frustrating and it's not okay.

i guess my answer to why they get so much interaction on twitter instead of here might have something to do with twitter just being a much bigger platform paired with it having an algorithm. and also how do you measure/what do you consider engagement on twitter? is it just the likes or is it also the retweets? to me here on tumblr i disregard the likes most of the time. what i consider engagement is if someone reblogged the gifset. so if we use that same logic to twitter and count the retweets/quote tweets (or whatever the fuck they're called), i don't think the engagement is better on twitter than it is here (i might be wrong tho since i don't really use twitter that much).

the normalization of lurker accounts on twitter (like i mentioned in the other ask), might also have something to do with the engagement being low. i get so many blank blogs following me/liking my posts and i can't tell if they're real people or bots. like i mentioned before, this is becoming more normal on other platforms, and i think tumblr has a job to do in this regard. they need to understand how the internet's changed, and then develop with the internet, while at the same time not loose what makes tumblr special/different from other platforms/social media.

as to why people seek out content here, but not interact with it might have something to do with tumblr's image? i think a lot of people look at tumblr a little like pinterest. that content just suddenly appears here and no one owns it (tbh pinterest is problematic in it's own way when it comes to stolen content but that's a topic for another day). tumblr gets looked down upon i feel like. people look at it like the 2012-2014 ~tumblr aesthetic~ or superwholock. so why would you admit that you have a tumblr account in 2023? maybe that's why they don't interact?

the sourceblogs and posting within the hour of something dropping is a whole nother beast tbh. like you mentioned "10 years ago, with weekly releases, it could sustain a fandom for the whole 7 of days, not just one hour". i think this has to do with our attention span being shorter. maybe we also can give netflix some of the fault in this with dropping whole seasons at once and the rise of binging. you have to see it the moment it drops or you're already too late. if you missed your shot of this small window, no one cares anymore bc we've moved on to the next thing <- lol super cynical of me maybe?

i think the idea of sourceblogs are a good one (and tracking tags). it's us gifmakers way of supporting each other and spreading our gifs to a wider audience (while tumblr continues to make it harder and harder for us to actually post gifs and have them be seen).

but as someone who's not in a lot of sourceblogs, but are still a gifmaker (maybe not predominantly tv/film but i do gif it!), i do feel left out or at an disadvantage a lot of the time. my gifs are not a priority, they go in the queue. and when posting gifs as soon as something drops is the only way for you to get notes/interaction- it sucks for me that my gifs will be reblogged when it's too "late" and people have lost interest. maybe they also will be reblogged at a time of the day when the dash is slower, or not reblogged at all sometimes.

moral of the story: pls interact with gifs and reblog them. it's more appreciated than you think. and don't steal gifs to repost them!

[solannecontinuum]

Oh!! So this is your second time getting to use Tumblr? Well, perhaps I can help a little bit! I am a 2012 Tumblr veteran, and it's both changed in a lot of ways yet also stood the same in contrast to most social media sites. Here's what I can share with you, based on the years I've used this site.

For starters, there actually really isn't any algorithms, and if there is, it is are very basic in nature. Tumblr is very good like that. It does take some time to get the ball rolling, regarding gaining traction, and you'll still experience hit-or-miss engagement at times, but there's no complex secret algos that do secret things such as showing your posts more if you do certain formats (like how IG prioritizes reels versus posts), hiding your posts for using certain words (more on that in a bit), or even shadow banning. That doesn't exist here at all, despite how most mainstream socials behave that way.

Dashboards can be set to show posts chronologically. It's not on by default, and most likely your dashboard is currently on "best posts first". You can change this in Settings > Dashboard > turn off "Best Stuff First." and you will have a pure chronological dashboard!

The first five tags are what are most important regarding your works showing up in tags. I was still surprised that this is still a thing (was implemented in mid-2010s, I believe?), but yes, make sure that you keep the most relevant tags as the first five. Sounds a little strange, but that's just how it continues to be, for some reason. You can have more than five tags, of course, but keeping the first fives ones the most relevant can help you be seen by more people.

Speaking of tags, PLEASE tag any content warnings with full, uncensored words so that tag filters can detect them. This whole dumb word censoring BS started on TikTok and Twitter, and sadly thanks to the mass migration to Tumblr currently happening, that censoring certain words mentality is making its way onto here, in which IS NOT GOOD AT ALL. Like I previously stated, there is literally no shadow banning happening on here, so it's not necessary to censor words. Most of all, people have certain CWs filtered so that posts containing anything about them are not shown; however, by doing shit like "cw bl00d" (real thing I saw) when tagging, it's not detected by those who have "cw blood" in their filters, thus that post still shows up regardless. This is heavily frowned upon here, so please type the full word for any CWs you need to tag.

You can also have your own blog theme! Many newcomers are not even aware that you can actually have a viewable blog page besides the default scrolling one that shows up upon clicking someone's username. You can turn this on in Settings > Blogs (click your blog) > Enable custom theme. Tumblr provides loads of versatile free blog theme templates that you can adjust, but creating blog themes via HTML is also available! Probably the most freedom you can have regarding blog customization. Real quick, I HIGHLY recommend visiting themesrec if you're seeking theme templates but made with HTML!! I've been using them since late high school, and there's a lot to choose from with high customization (despite the blog being dead for years now).

Some other little tidbits (added @ 8:17AM)

If you wish to comment on someone's art, you can do so in the tags of your reblogs! People like to leave comments in the tags and really gush about what you've made, and it's definitely one of the best aspects to this website. There's nothing I love more than seeing a reblog with someone having a happy stroke in the tags! Stuff like that brightens days for sure. And as a final note to let you know .... growth isn't or shouldn't really be your endgoal/ your purpose for posting art on here, so I would not recommend treating Tumblr that way. IG, TikTok, and Twitter have done some serious damage hamming in on becoming big with big numbers and "OOOOOH gotta appease the almighty algorithm gods to get numbers!!" n' junk. But Tumblr isn't really about that. Even having a couple hundred followers is good enough, honestly. Tumblr's mainly a place to vibe most of all; all you really need is a target audience or circle of friends n' mutuals and just vibe n' share sillies, versus trying to endlessly grow to receive acknowledgement and do what's trending or whatever while literally lose your soul in the process. By letting yourself just be, your experience on Tumblr will be a WHOLE lot more fun and enriching.

Those are the most important ones I can think of at the moment, but please, if you have any further Tumblr questions, please do drop them in my ask box!!! There's so much to Tumblr and there's a reason why it's much more chill and comfortable compared to TikTok and Twitter - or uh, as the kids say, Tumblr is our HELLSITE /POSITIVE / AFFECTIONATE and not Twitter/TikTok HELLSITE /NEGATIVE /DEROGATORY

PS: here we do not use very modern words such as "moots" or "oomfs" - we just say "mutuals" and "followers". Thought I'd let you know.

OH MY GOODNESS, YOU'RE ON TUMBLR AS WELL?!?! YES!!! I always love seeing your art on my feed on InstaSky, and I will always adore the commission you made for me of my beloved little moth goddess. 💖

oh my gosh hiii?? nice to see a familliar face! 🫶

Yes!! it's my second attempt to grow a tumblr, IT'S VERY UNUSUAL HERE and in meantime I'm slowly palping algorithms

I'm happy i made something you cherish till this day :'''з

[misteria247]

I just realized how much of a mess my blog is sfdfdgfgfghh. It's chaotic like it's got things from old ass Supernatural rps from going on two or three years ago to Twisted Wonderland simping and adopting posts to Jojo's Bizarre Adventure posts it's like I can't have one thing on this blog.

Am I a Twisted Wonderland blog? Or an Inuyasha blog? Or maybe a Black Butler blog? Or....perhaps an ancient such as Homestuck or Hetalia blog?

The world may never know.

[firelxdykatara]

not gonna lie I would love to hear more about the drama and infighting that went on in The Vampire Diaries fandom if you have the time (and also want to use that time to give your experience with the fandom, which from the snippets you've told sounds Not Fun so I get it if you don't want to lol)

oh god, there was like, SO MUCH, i just

i really feel like tvd is one of those fandoms that is so hard to describe without a lot of ‘you’d have to have been there’, but it really felt like this huge and all-consuming beast for about five years until the show finally imploded and the fandom basically turned on it en masse. (you ever see that post going around that’s like ‘if you ever want to know what true regret feels like, ask someone who once called tvd their favorite show’? still a mood, all these years later. basically the entire fandom thought the show should have just bowed out with whatever shreds of dignity it had left at the end of season 6, and became more of a hatedom than a fandom for the last two seasons. when you have an entire fandom cheering news of your show’s cancellation, i think that’s a sign you done fucked up, julie.)

first and most infamous, of course, are the ship wars. which are pretty much inevitable in any teen-centered drama, and i really think the CW fucking thrives on them, but it was particularly egregious in TVD’s case because not only was the base premise of the show a love triangle, but the two main romantic leads were brothers that the show constantly pit against one another--in pursuit of elena’s affections, but also because it kept up this insistence on the ‘good brother/bad brother’ dichotomy which stopped making sense after about season 2 (by which time we have found out that the good brother was never as good as he appeared, and the bad brother has been growing and isn’t nearly as bad as he pretends to be)--and the question of which brother ‘deserved’ elena (and no, what elena wanted very rarely factored into these discussions, especially in the team stefan camp because they turned on her when what she wanted was no longer The Good Brother, but i’ll get to that in a bit) was hotly contested.

i’m not kidding when i say the shipping wars were vicious. i started watching tvd shortly after it began to air, which was late 2009, and kept up with it fairly sporadically over the years. i didn’t come onto tumblr until 2011/2012, and by then, the fandom was already pretty much a garbagefire. there were anti ship and anti character blogs, any time something bad happened for one ship the rival ship would invade the tags to gloat about it (seasons 3 and 4 were especially rough, and i’m not gonna pretend delena fans weren’t just as bad about tag invasion and shit, but as that was my side of the road i saw a lot more of the stelena shippers being assholes, which soured my opinion on the ship a long time before i started rewatching and realized the red flags were there from the start), confessions blogs were popular also toxic as fuck (so much fighting happened in the notes of those posts, good gods), and this was right around when twitter’s popularity was on the rise and the line between Celebrity and Fan was thinning, so the fandom was absolutely atrocious to much of the tvd cast and crew.

(some of them deserved a lot of the later backlash, but in the early years a lot of it was ‘how dare you write the story in a way i dont like, you terrible fucking person’, and gods don’t get me started on the dobsley vs nian Thing)

i think what really encapsulates my feelings on the tvd fandom as a whole, though, is the way they (to this DAY) treated elena gilbert, which can be summed up in one meme that gained a lot of traction around season 3 if i remember right: that gif of pam from true blood, with the text altered to read “i’m so OVER elena and her precious doppelganger vagina!”

i swear at one time i had over half the active tvd fan accounts on tumblr blocked, because i got to a point where i would no longer tolerate elena hate, and she was (and still is, in what remains of the fandom; you’ll see a lot of ‘elena was one of the worst things about the show’ takes from ex-fans, too) one of the most widely despised characters in the entire fandom. because she -checks smudged writing on hand- was a traumatized teenage girl who -reads off a crumpled notecard- couldn’t always perfectly sort out her own feelings and -squints at the ceiling- sometimes made mistakes or bad decisions. (except a lot of the fandom also insisted that she was a mary sue who had no character traits or flaws or faults and it was like....make up your fucking minds???? is she a calculating conniving bitch whose somehow manipulating these centuries old vampires to tie them around her little finger or is she a boring flat character with no depth and no flaws??? jfc)

there was this massive double standard, too--like, stefan and damon could fuck whoever they wanted and that was fine, but elena was constantly raked over the coals for the crime of developing romantic feelings for the two men who had become constants in her life and whom she cared for deeply, and oh my GOD the slut shaming that happened when elena slept with damon was fucking wild. (and also happened in canon lmfao. like the show had one of elena’s best friends basically call her diseased on screen for falling in love with someone other than stefan. it was gross and ridiculous and the friend in question was also being a giant hypocrite at the time since she was happily flirting with someone who was directly responsible for the deaths of like four of elena’s loved ones and her own boyfriend’s mother but that’s beside the point) but like elena was called a slut and a bitch and a whore for ‘cheating’ on stefan (she hadn’t, and she had in fact broken up with him on screen the episode earlier) and ‘immediately’ jumping into bed with damon, even though none of them said fucking boo when stefan had one night stands or damon had fuckbuddies or whatever.

shit, caroline didn’t get any of this treatment when she started falling for tyler while dating matt! which isn’t to say i think she should have, just that i think it’s fucking ridiculous that elena was absolutely demonized by the fandom for daring to have feelings for two guys at once and eventually acting on them--despite the fact that the entire premise of the show was a love triangle. it’s not a love triangle if both sides don’t eventually get explored, and the crew had been pretty explicit about the fact that delena was going to happen at some point--but when it did, a huge chunk of the fandom absolutely threw a fit.

and a lot of these elena haters were alleged stelena stans, and i say alleged because they hated her so much for not wanting stefan’s dick anymore that it was clear they were really stefan stans and only wanted stelena to be endgame because they wanted stefan to ‘win’ at the end of the day, because ‘he’s the good brother’ so he deserved elena more.

it was all very gross and very misogynistic and very sex shaming (apparently delena was a ‘shallow’ and ‘superficial’ relationship because they had sex after two years of unrequited feelings slowly becoming requited and then pining for ages on both sides, and because they had a lot of on screen chemistry that the show capitalized on for years so of course they did a lot of making out and shit but it’s not like stelena didn’t have its fair share of making out and sex scenes, stefan was just too much of a coward to let elena top i’d apologize for that joke but i’m really not sorry because it’s true), and when i say it was egged on by the crew, that’s because they refused to let the love triangle die back in season 4 when it should have.

they insisted on stringing stelena fans along, dropping little bread crumbs to keep them invested, like dreams of a future where they were married and revealing that stefan was also a doppelganger and he and elena were descended from a pair of star-crossed lovers (a plot that ultimately went nowhere, to no one’s great surprise), and then fucking like. julie plec turned around and threw nina under the bus after she chose not to extend her contract and pretended that stelena might have happened again if she hadn’t left the show, which....i mean frankly i wouldn’t put it past her, but it would have been shitty writing. then again, she thought having a vampire pregnancy where a uterus was magically transplanted from a witch into a vampire that could somehow......carry the babies to term.... made sense and was a good way to accomodate candice’s RL pregnancy rather than like literally ANYTHING else, soooooo. but anyway julie saying that around like, end of s6 sparked off a new wave of nina hate and elena hate and ship wars bc they SEers took it as ‘confirmation’ that stelena was REALLY meant to be endgame and it was all just a hot fucking mess

another thing is that, while tvd was in its prime before the anti/purity culture shit started picking up any real steam, there was still this pervasive attitude throughout the fandom that if you liked Damon, you were A Bad Person. liking damon was apparently grounds for insults and harassment, and apparently he was The Worst Person on the Show even though literally nothing he does on screen is any worse than shit we know stefan has done (and frankly every other vampire too, but i mention stefan specifically because he was always held up--in the show but especially in the fandom--as the Good Brother while damon was the Bad One, and if you liked damon more then that had to mean your morals were dodgy and you clearly couldn’t appreciate what a heroic and saintly figure dear stefan was and....oops, i’m sorry, my salt keeps leaking -cough-).

meanwhile klaus quickly became a fandom darling despite not even really having much of a redemption arc (on tvd anyway, he just became more ‘affably evil’ as the show went on and more inclined to work with the main characters rather than try to kill them; i have no idea what went on over on his show, though), and like i can 100% appreciate liking villains and not caring that they do dodgy villainous shit, even just liking them bc they’re hot and wanting them to kiss a main character bc they have insanely good chemistry (yes i ship klaroline, no i won’t apologize for it, they could have been Really Great), it’s just really the double standard that gets me.

and all of this, incidentally, required ignoring some truly gross shit stefan was responsible for wrt his relationship with elena, that frankly it has always bothered me never really got addressed in the show. i get why elena herself would never be able to actually call him on it, but the fact is that he stalked her for months after he first saw her and thought she was katherine (meanwhile it only took damon .5 seconds to realize she was someone else entirely, but that’s another topic entirely), and then he deliberately inserted himself into her life because, in his words, ‘i have to know her’. he never gave a thought to how his presence in her life might affect her (or rather, he did, and tormented himself about it in his internal monologue, but never let this actually dissuade him from disrupting her life), and elena would wind up blaming herself for every tragedy that befell her friends and loved ones as a result of getting mixed up in vampire bullshit even though none of it was her fault--she literally blamed herself for existing but most of the fandom didn’t give a fuck about that lmfao--and stefan did shit like find out that she was adopted and then withhold this information from her until she got pissed about another secret he was keeping (her resemblence to katherine) and drop it on her to try and distract her from her very reasonable anger, and like... i should stop before this becomes a whole rant about how much i hate stefan fucking salvatore, but the point is, he did a lot of really sketchy shit he never answered for and elena never really took him to task for, and the fandom just kept eating up his insistence that he was the Good Brother and therefore he deserved to have elena, and if she didn’t want him anymore it was because she was a heinous bitch who didn’t deserve him.

uh.....i think i got off track there. and there’s probably a lot of shit i missed, like i think i was incandescent with rage for most of seasons 5 and 6 so i missed a lot of the interfandom shit cause i was too busy being increasingly pissed off at the show itself, but if nothing else this should give you an idea of how much of a goddamn cesspit the fandom was while the show as in its prime. there’s a reason both the show and the fandom have such a lousy reputation lmfao.

[confessionsofa-roleplayer]

Hey! I need some advice on how to handle RPs with OCs that display toxic behavior. Said toxic behavior is mildly triggering. How do I bring it up without sounding like an ass? How do I stop fearing backlash for saying something? How do I leave without it looking rude?

Well, Anon, without knowing what that behavior is, it's harder to give you solid advice. But that's totally okay. I understand that offering too much information can lead to potential identification, which isn’t what we want here. So, I'll do my best to respond to you in a general sense.

First - I would hope any unwanted partner behavior (especially if it's a potential trigger for you) is something you've already addressed in your rules/guidelines. If that's the case, then I don't think you'd 'sound like an ass' if you messaged them and just said, "Hey, so I've noticed you doing {list their behavior here} in our thread, and it's in my rules that that's not okay. I enjoy writing with you, but for my own comfort, I won’t be able to continue our thread if you continue to do this." You can also tell them you'll block or soft block them, too. But since you're wanting to avoid looking like the 'bad guy' I think I would only use those measures if they become necessary.

If, for some reason, this unwanted behavior isn't in your rules/guidelines, then you should add it. Once your rules are edited you can post on your dash about updated rules (maybe @ing all of your current partners?) and ask everyone to look it over. I would probably phrase it a bit like this, "I recently realized that some things I thought were already included in my guidelines weren't. I've made some additions and edits and would like everyone to give them a look as soon as you can. Thank you so much!" This would be a good time to do any additional rule revamps and edits so that it looks less like you're targeting this one specific thing this mun is doing.

In regards to your last question about leaving without looking rude, I think the only way to do that is to try talking to this mun first.  There’s always the chance (especially if this issue isn’t addressed in your rules) that they really have no clue what they’re doing is wrong.  New roleplayers especially can fall victim to not knowing what’s ‘okay’ and what’s not.  Give them the benefit of the doubt and let them know what’s going on.  Say something like, “Hey, I know it’s not in my rules, but when you do {list their behavior here} it actually makes me really uncomfortable.  I enjoy writing with you, but I won’t be able to continue our thread if you continue to do this.”  If - after you’ve talked to them - they continue to do the thing, then you are well within your rights to walk away without another word.  You warned them what would happen and they chose to ignore that warning.  That’s on them, not on you.

As for how to stop fearing backlash... I'm sorry, Anon, but I don't have a good answer for that one. I've been writing roleplays on tumblr since 2012, and I still get nervous when I have to talk to someone about something they're doing wrong. I get nervous about it when I have to do it as a mod, too. On COAR I suck it up and do it because it's part of my duties; on my own blogs I find myself weighing the level of the offense (often offering leeway depending on my own comfort levels.)  All I can really tell you is that once I’ve said what needs to be said I usually do something to relax and/or treat myself.  I’ll spend some extra time on a favorite computer game, or I’ll or buy myself something I’ve been wanting or I’ll have something sweet to eat.  It doesn’t help with the anxiousness of dealing with the thing, but it always helps with the aftermath.

I hope some of this has helped you decide what will work best for you in this situation, Anon.  Would our followers like to add on any additional ideas?  Or maybe share some of their own experiences with any similar situations?

~ Mod MJ ~

[africanfemalearchitects]

AFA Open- Chat Series with Tosin Oshinowo pt 1

Listen to the important advices and conversation shared in this IG Live conversation with @tosin.oshinowo about the practice, being a woman in the field to planning ahead your career.

Moderator: Today, we are chatting with Tosin Oshinowo a Nigerian architect, creative entrepreneur, public speaker and author. Find introductory background on Tosin Oshinowo here.

Moderator: Tosin, you're welcome. Thank you so much for being here, and accepting our invite at the last minute.

Tosin: It's nice to physically see you. You've created an amazing platform. Well done! It's so important to create these converging spaces, you know; and finally to realize that you're not alone.

Moderator: Yes, definitely! That is one of the main reasons I'm going to keep it going; since it's connecting more than one person. Otherwise, this would be just a blog about architects, but it's becoming a hub, and a networking platform. Tosin, please, tell us a bit about yourself.

Tosin: My name's Tosin Oshinowo, I'm from Nigeria. I registered CmDesignAtelier in 2011, but I didn't start operations until 2012. Everyone approaches business very differently: some people have a clear game-plan from the very beginning; but I didn't have one yet. I had registered a company, but I was still working for another practice. I was still finding my feet; you know, that fear - 'Are you doing the right thing?' or 'Should I really be doing this or stay where I am?'. It did take me a while to step out; and even when I did, it took me a while to accept that I wasn't going back to work. At the time I set up my company, I was going through a few life changes, as well. I was looking for something that, I felt, that rooted a background I hadn't had in Academia with, and the work life. A lot of people do have that problem where they do big designs and all of a sudden, they get to the office and have to make it straight. Something contradictory to what I was taught in that utopian-ideal of design school that doesn't exist in real life. It's a surprise when I tell people this. I actually took a sabbatical year. Because I felt I was soul-searching more than anything. Moderator: That's important! Tosin: And I had a safety net, if it didn't work out; well, at least, I know I would have tried. As you're older, you also have responsibilities. You've things you've to do with money, it's not just to be happy with your job, so I needed that security. In looking for that, I created this safety net for myself. When I knew it was going to work, I went and told my boss; you know what, I'm not going to come back! But I had to be certain for myself, that the decisions I was making, were going to pay off. Moderator: That's wise. Funny thing though, you said you started your practice in 2011 - I think I was just entering university. Tosin: Haha aw, you just made me feel old! I think it's important to let people understand with everything in life- especially, with creative design and maybe not innovative business models to-do-with technology that makes you think everything must be quick, and easy to adapt with and to. With The principles behind technology and the people who are starting it: there are so much that goes in it. There might be something that first worked or didn't that led to another path. I think it's important to realize in life that everything is about picking your iceberg. There's so much that happens underneath the water line that shouldn't be underestimated as less important. It might not appear overtime to be of value, but I promise you it makes a massive difference.

I was talking with someone over the weekend. We just got featured in Wallpaper Architecture Issue, which is a big deal! I was telling the person that the building that was featured - I did it in a weekend! And he said; the years of training and practice is what allowed you to do in a weekend. It's not the fact that you did it in the weekend. Now when I think about it like that, that's a valid point. It's a combination of experiences, exposure, practice, labor, and time that allows it to happen in the weekend. Moderator: It's also passion-fueled, and perseverance within the field to even be able to allow yourself to go through that process and to reach this level. About your beginnings, what were the struggles and challenges when you were entering the market - in-between contractors, consultancy?

"It's important to have that safety net of working for someone to understand the nuances and the businesses and the market, that you're relating in..."

Tosin: It's a very wide question. That's why you have to have so many roads before you start. I worked in a firm for four years when I came back to Nigeria, before I set up on my own. I had met people. I didn't realize at the time, that's where I formed a network of people that I work with. I work with the same structural engineer ever since, unless if the client imposes one. I met him on a project, and he was working for a structural company at the time - so it's seamless; you grow with your network. The work we were doing has changed, but we have the same base, which I think is important. We met the QS then, the services consultants, etc - you learn how to maneuver your industry when you work for someone else; especially in Africa where things aren't straight forward. A lot of things are about relationships here. It's not like the yellow pages you can open and say, I need to find this person. It's important to have that safety net of working for someone to understand the nuances and the businesses and the market, that you're relating in; and the people you'll eventually work with; because we don't do this alone.

You grow with your network.

Of course, it was challenging starting business, and as a woman, I was then exposed to things that I was not exposed to when I was working for someone else. When you work for somebody else, most of the time, by the time the project gets to your desk as a project architect; any discussion in relationships with clients have been done. You literally get the design brief, and this is your client and you start your work. When you work for yourself, and you have to do those relationships discussions with clients: it's a completely different board-game. I'm not married, so people start saying silly things here and there - and you have to learn very quickly as a woman how to maneuver that space, without creating offense; because at the end of the day - business is about relationships; and people work with people who they like. If you come across as difficult, or stiff no matter how good you are, people won't gravitate towards you. But as a woman, you have to learn very quickly, how to ensure that you're not giving them an encouraging green light to misbehave. But you don't want to create an awkward tension that makes them think you're not easy-to-relate with. I don't know if this is the same anywhere else in the world, but I can say categorically for Nigeria, that people do not seem to understand a woman in work and a woman they're trying to have a relationship with. It is not the same thing! And people in this environment, because you're friendly and unapproachable; you're giving them the green light. I'm not giving you a green-light, I'm just trying to do my job. In The Chat: It's an African-thing! Moderator: Have you faced any form of discrimination in the field, and how did you deal with it?

you have to learn very quickly as a woman how to maneuver that space, without creating offense...

Tosin: Of course, we face discrimination everyday. To be Honest, I actually have not been assigned a project because I'm a woman; and somebody's wife was not comfortable, I mean what do you do? We all have our handicaps in life. So, I make sure I push boundaries. I don't think people do this consciously. It's not an intentional prejudice. But if a client is telling you, you're a pretty girl, and my wife is not going to be comfortable. So what am I going to do with that? Scar my face so that your wife doesn't worry? Haha, It's just the reality. I know that there are certain works I will not get, but the ones that I do get, I'll make sure that I do it well, and hopefully see that as a reference point, for people who are interested in that kind of work, will ask for my service.

Moderator: It doesn't matter which field you're in, as a woman that definitely happens. There's a job I had to cancel due to the same reasons. Tosin: It makes you wonder how many other opportunities have you not been told; because it's not a pleasant conversation to have. The irony that it is a woman causing another woman not to get work, for instance. It is what it is. There's no point in crying on work you don't get. Work that you get, you kill it! Just make sure that it counts, because you also know you have this potential handicap - where you might not have the same opportunities as your male colleague; so you make the best of your situation.

"It's just the reality. I know that there are certain works I will not get because I'm a woman..."

Moderator: Keep moving! In Nigeria, how does a young female graduate architect find a tribe or community? Tosin: For example, I was an awkward person, in the sense that I went to school in the UK, and I count how many people I knew who were black in the UK, or studying architecture less alone Nigerian. When I came back to Nigeria, I was a fish out the water - I didn't know anyone; but I worked in an office; whether intentionally or unintentionally; I built a network. There are people here, when they see me in that community they were surprised I didn't go to school in Nigeria: you have to be intentional! You have to seek people out! You have to befriend people. If you're looking for a community, you have to make that effort. In my case, I met the community through initial networks of working in a local practice and then, finding my feet and meeting people; and I grew from then. Now, I don't focus on my Nigerian community alone, I'm focusing on my global community, and make an intentional effort. Look at this interview, you told me, and I made sure that this is important, that I want to do this - that I'm building the network. I'm very intentional. Anyone who wants to get ahead, needs to be intentional. You have to learn how it works elsewhere, and you learn from these relationships. Things are not always the same, and other things are.

If you're looking for a community, you have to make that effort. Anyone who wants to get ahead, needs to be intentional. You have to learn how it works elsewhere.

Moderator: Everyone who is at the beginning of their career, currently, this is what we are struggling with. We have to push ourselves, be uncomfortable, and make those connections. Also, don't think just locally. There's a way with African Female Architects or outside of Africa, as an example, I hope we are going to create or find ways to reach out and connect with each other, work together and support each other. What is your perspective on African and local Architecture- in your country, and the practice ?

We were brought into modernism. Modernism was populated across the whole world not just in Africa, yes, in many terms it took the climate into consideration : modernism in Europe look absolutely different from Modernism in Tropical, to North and South Africa; and there are certain consistencies of modernism. But if we are looking for specific identities: I think we are just beginning.

To continue reading part 2