My experience with Tumblr has been mostly very rocky, and each new experience has brought something different, albeit exciting, and has given me a new perspective on the way I write, and also the people around me.
When I shut down ‘threecyphers’ due to a handful of reasons including plagiarism, hate comments flooding into my ask-box and also a feeling of isolation around my other friends who wrote amazing stories on this platform, I never expected that I would continue writing on here. However, I made a new blog, ‘cosykims’, to express my newfound love for writing, in a new tense that I felt comfortable in. I trusted myself with the confidence to post my content online, and I could not have been more content with the results.
As somebody who gives out content to not only please myself, but also a growing number of readers, I never expected to feel reliant on Tumblr. I have very passionate and sometimes controversial views on Tumblr, and how blogs are treated. I am a firm believer in the idea that numbers do not equal success or talent, however, they have a large contribution. At the start of my journey on this new, and safe blog, I felt like I could happily work with 100 notes, even if I had spent hours, maybe even weeks, on this piece of work.
The uploading of the Merlot Murders series took a large chunk of my time, and the result of the story was outstanding to me. I saw my writing change into something I considered phenomenal; I was able to experiment with a new tense, and introduce characters and start writing with a voice that was inspired by so many of my favourite authors. I got to try my hand at writing for the horror genre, which I never considered doing, and I also realised that breaking away from smut related content resulted in a happier writing process, where it didn’t require me reading hours worth of sexual fiction to understand the basics of sexual positions, that I had not practiced myself. However, the response to a story that I spent so much time on was incredibly underwhelming, to a point where the motivation to write the story was decreased.
It felt more like I was forcing myself to write a story, a series that I loved, for an audience who didn’t care about it. The lack of interest in my fiction came from the fact that I abandoned smut writing, which only further shows how the Tumblr community craves this sexual fiction that actually makes a lot of celebrities uncomfortable. I realised that the fandom I wrote for were so desperate to read a graphically sexual piece of writing, that my hours of hard work simply went unnoticed. My works with the big, bold (M) next to them got a lot more attention than my other works that did not include sexual content. A great example of this was when I received a comment on the Wattpad uploaded version of Your Body is My Canvas, where a reader outwardly criticised my work simply because I did not include a graphic depiction of sex between Yoongi and Jimin.
Everybody changes, and everybody’s interests change. I have been writing for BTS and a handful of other KPOP groups since I was fourteen, and my writing has changed so much since then. From 2015 to 2018, my writing has become something that I never ever imagined it could be. Perhaps it is selfish to say, and perhaps arrogant, but I do consider myself one of the writers on Tumblr that value the plotline over the smut. I sweat blood for these stories; I am so passionate about what I write and what I produce, and I spend hours upon hours crafting them with details that make me happy. To see a lack of response disheartens me greatly, and leaves me questioning if I want to continue writing for a Tumblr audience.
‘cosykims’ has provided me with a large audience of 2,000 people, of whom once enjoyed my creations. There are only a few of you left who will read this post, and who will feel some sort of sadness to hear that I am leaving.
As expected, this post will be ignored, just like the rest of all my other stories. I am honestly very tired and bored of uploading something, feeling excited, only to have it come flying back into my face when nobody cares about it.
Writing became a chore; and I grew dispassionate for a while. The BTS fandom became toxic, and honestly, stanning BTS was such a toxic time of my life, and I am glad that I no longer associate myself with the fans of the group. I was in such an unhappy place mentally, and even though I still find myself feeling incredibly unhappy today, I feel a lot better knowing that the weight from trying to fit in amongst stuck up, and demanding people has been lifted.
That being said, I am forever thankful and grateful to all of the people who constantly supported this blog, and remained happy to see what I uploaded, and always gave me feedback; whether that be in a note, a reblog, or even a message wishing me a good day, or complimenting a story I wrote. It meant the world to me, and it still does, and I am so, so lucky to have had such loyal and supportive readers. Furthermore, I hope that you find happiness reading other people’s work, and that you can join me in the next part of my journey.
Whilst writing fiction is still my biggest love, and I continue to write, I am definitely valuing my school life over the fandom antics that once controlled me. My grades are simply far more important to me than this blog, and my family and friends demand my time a lot more than Tumblr does. My biggest regret for the past year was not being open with my friends and family, and pushing them out to focus on writing on a blog that does nothing to better me as a person, and does nothing to make me happy.
I do still write on various other platforms, and I do suggest you follow me on all my other links to continue supporting me, as a person, if you wish. Wattpad, as cringey as this sounds, is my main platform, as the response I get on there is very helpful and heartwarming. My AO3 still runs and I hope to upload my content from here onto there.
I simply cannot stop copyright, and I understand it’s bound to happen. Like I did with ‘threecyphers’, I will probably be back to slander those who steal my work publicly, because I lost all sympathy for people who blatantly disrespect others.
Thank you so much for such a wild ride on here, and I hope you all can understand my reasons for leaving this site. Whether or not I open another blog in the future is still unclear.
Signing off.
cosykims, aka holly.
