Tommy Considered You A Friend All Along. Did You, Him?

tommy considered you a friend all along. did you, him?

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mm hi!!

i saw you talking about the lack of not-vilbur/'insane' wilbur soot fics and i just wanted to toss some over here rq: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2015807 -spiralbur oneshot series, https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909273 season one series, (also the author is just great overall), https://archiveofourown.org/works/28269930 -canon divergent hurt/comfort with fundy, https://archiveofourown.org/works/26789584 -schlatt and wilbur and angst,,, https://archiveofourown.org/series/1971445 still my favourite series on ao3, traitor-not-traitor wilbur, https://archiveofourown.org/series/2156622 amazing post-16th fix it fics aaa

hey! as an artist do you ever feel discouraged by the like/reblog ratio here? ive been postin art here for some time and ive found for every 20 likes i get maybe 1 reblog and while i dont wanna come over as greedy it like kinda discourages me :( i would rlly like to stay on tumblr bc it feels much more anonymous than insta/twitter but i also crave Validation ykno. ty in advance!

Okay, but I fear you won’t like my answer... 

My reply is - no, I don’t, because tumblr actually makes it super easy to ignore the reblog/like ratio. The two are lumped together into a category called ‘notes’ so unless you are looking for it, you won’t know what your reblog/like ratio is, and it’s super easy to view it as a lump sum of people who saw your art and smiled.

Here’s the thing; liking vs reblogging is not personal. And it isn’t something to try to change the tide over. I’ve seen my fair share of posts on here AND twitter, with most of them CONDEMNING liking - going so far as to call it useless. But I disagree. Strongly. 

My opinion on the matter is this - if people wanted to reblog the post, they would reblog it. If they don’t, the cards weren’t right. The stars didn’t align. It isn’t a matter of quality - it’s a matter of the right content being there at the right time for the right audience. Because let’s face is - PLENTY of stuff gets reblogged.... when the circumstances are right.

But the circumstances HAVE to be right. EXACTLY right. There has to be a CHAIN of the exact right circumstances. That’s how sharing ANYTHING works. 

Let me put it this way - say we have a hypothetical follower called J. 

J is scrolling his dashboard and comes across a post he likes, say, of a frog picture. He likes the post and has to make a decision - to reblog or not reblog the frog?

Say he likes the frog enough to reblog. It’s  a natural thing - he wants to show it to his followers. He may not think of it consciously, but he’s following an instinct to share information with people. 

But what happens after? Well, it’s not RANDOM. The thing is, J’s followers are NOT the followers of the blog he reblogged it from. They’re a degree of separation from the OP, and are therefore that much less likely to share interests that align with the OP’s content. 

SO what happens is this:

Some people on J’s follower list see the frog and like it. 

Of the ones that like it, a percentage are just liking out of habit and politeness.

A few are liking it to find it later and show it to their irl friends.

A few are liking it because they DON’T want to reblog it, because it doesn’t align with what they want to show to THEIR followers (who are, let’s be honest, even MORE removed from the OP’s frog-centric content).

And who’s to blame? 

ABSOLUTELY NO ONE. Because you cannot force people to reblog stuff any more than you can force people to show their friend their phone when they see a funny meme. 

Can you imagine something like this happening?

This is ridiculous, right? We cannot presume that people are not reblogging because they’re out to be malicious on purpose. Most likely they just aren’t motivated enough to share it in their own social circles for their own reasons - and that’s FINE. 

Look, I get it. People not sharing your stuff gets you less notes. I get how that is disappointing. But if you put ALL of your motivation into internet clout, then you have to put effort into making your art VISIBLE. That’s the only way to get more reblogs. 

For example, if you’re prioritizing visibility:

Get more social media accounts. Make sure the usernames are the same, or at least recognizable, across all social media. 

Organize your art tumblr and twitter. Make a pinned post that shows off your best work. TAG! Learn common tags used for artwork similar to yours.

Interact with other artists! Comment on posts! Reblog others’ artwork! 

NETWORK!!! That is the only way to guarantee that the flowchart of reblogs gets more than once branch.

Twitter circumvents this issue by shoving likes in your face as often as Retweets and that’s certainly one way to give your reblog-tree a boost, but it’s not foolproof. Tumblr has tags you can follow - and that DOES give you more of a possibility of getting reblogs of the content because if people are in a tag, they are LOOKING for stuff. On purpose. They already like what they see.

I feel your pain, I really do, because it took me literal YEARS to find an audience that consistently likes and reblogged my stuff. And your audience deserves to find you - but your followers aren’t your agent. It’s not their job to advertise on your behalf. 

They’ll reblog when they want to - and that’s a good thing. It’s more genuine that way. 

ARCHIVE YOUR FIC ON AO3 FOR ETERNAL GLORY

It physically pains me to see people post awesome fanfiction to tumblr and nowhere else. Tumblr moves so fast! By tomorrow people who didn’t look in a tag at the right moment won’t know it existed. By next week even people who did read it won’t be able to find it back to reread. Finding anything on tumblr via search function is practically a fluke. For all intents and purposes, your hard work has a halflife of about a week at most.

PUT YOUR WORK ON AO3 WHERE IT CAN LIVE ETERNALLY, I BEG YOU

People who come into that fandom in a month, a year, even a decade will be able to find your work!

People can bookmark it!

People can rec it to others!

People can reread it into infinity! (and people like me can do that and comment every time!)

You can get comments & kudos until the endtimes because people will keep finding your work! (seriously I still sometimes get new people finding and loving my work from ~2013)

And best of all, people can SUBSCRIBE to your work so they will get email about new chapters and stories! (I’m seeing people do manual ‘Tag you in the next chapter’ lists and seriously, physical pain, this wheel has already been invented and it is rolling beautifully)

PLEASE LET ME BOOKMARK YOUR FIC I BEG YOU

“But I need an invite for AO3!”

Yes, and the waiting list is currently 2-3 days. That’s hardly worth not doing this for, right?

“But I only read fic, I don’t post it”

here is a post on why having an account just to read fic is also very worth it!

Lately I’ve been the tumblr person who jumps onto people who post cool fic to tumblr and going HEY HAVE YOU POSTED THIS TO AO3, YOU REALLY SHOULD, HIT ME UP FOR AN INVITE CODE and I hereby invite all you fellow fic readers and posters to join me into spreading the good word.

Please reblog this and tag your favourite fandoms and pairings! Spread this post to the people who need to see it! Save great fic from the tumblr void!

Free robust education system with teachers being esteemed and students being paid means nothing when countries like Sweden are DEEPLY racist. You don't think the Black, Roma, Jewish, Muslim students are still being abused and discriminated?

Same with Healthcare being universally free. If antiblackness, antiromanyism and antisemitism are still deeply entrenched then all the "free" healthcare means nothing when doctors and nurses will tell you you're faking or outright refuse to treat you or sterilize you without your knowledge or consent.

"But nothing is perfect!1 it's still progress and better than-" is it better tho? Like, I'd LOVE free education and healthcare but what do those mean when antiblackness, racism, antisemitism are still going strong with white supremacist groups thriving in the country? You think the racism just won't affect and influence healthcare and education AT ALL?!?!!

@歷蜀記Lishuji

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