*A PSA About Boundaries*
So...I normally don't make posts about this, but I think it's warranted given what happened to me today and yesterday. I didn't think about it until now when I began to notice the red flags.
I'm not going to name this user and I've since deleted every posts where they interacted with me. But if you happen to experience this with other people of similar behavior, then you may likely know what it's like to deal with that, whether you're a writer, an artist, or a personal blogger.
Yesterday I made a casual post in a particular fandom--again I won't name it--and it was about how it's good that I'm not a writer for a major show because I would've gone down a different and sadder path for these 2 characters--both of whom written off due to their voice actors passing away.
Often, most of my posts don't get that much traction unless it manages to hit a certain chord. For example, Deltarune.
However, just a little bit later, I'd both gained a follower and a comment that asked me any fanfiction of the scenario above. We've done a little bit of back and forth, more than I usually expect.
I'm not normally used to this much interaction at this scale, aside from likes or reblogs.
Anyway, I had to remind them that Tumblr was the only website I've felt comfortable using as a personal blog and kindly declined on following them back because I was prioritizing my boundaries a bit. Though I was willing to let them subscribe to my AO3 because I do writing on the side and it gave me the motivation of wanting to go forward with the idea.
From last night to about the next morning, there was a gap when I didn't receive any new messages, which was okay.
Then they started messaging me again and it was still on the same post. Last I checked it was about around 50 notes, all just from that interaction.
To be fair, I didn't had the ask box open and I opened it up in the hopes that it would mitigate the problem.....then after a couple of messages, they kept going. Sometimes it was minutes apart, other times it was to an hour or more.
But the basic way to describe it was that it was frequent. Whether it be short comments or short questions regarding my plans for the fanfic.
That's when I had to take a step back a bit.
I had already checked their profile at first to make sure they weren't a bot. They don't post frequently but hey that's not uncommon. They're not some big name or anything like that. Their name was searchable on Tumblr and it turns out a majority of the results consisted their interactions with other people in different fandoms. So no problem there.
Then I came across 2 posts, one questioning why their inbox was being spammed with messages from this user and another which was screencapped from AO3 where they were constantly commenting to a random author about when the next chapter would be finished, which bordered on pestering.
This made it clear to me that this isn't the first time they overstepped.
Not wanting to take any chances, I blocked them on both sites.
Now it's important to remember that every person is different when it comes to tolerance.
I was willing to tolerate it long enough because nothing seemed to pop out at me right out the gate. The last thing I told them was to slow down a bit on the questions. I even recommended to them twice to put all their in questions into one post.
But after knowing what I know now, this is my blog and I gotta be firm.
I need to stress that I'm not typing this out for the sake of starting drama. I want to believe that they weren't being malicious. Hence why I'm not naming the user involved. But if by sheer chance that you happen to know who this person is or maybe noticed your inbox being spammed by them, please please PLEASE don't interact with them nor harass them in any way. Simply block and move on.
I'm praying that this doesn't escalate any further.
But if there's anything to learn from this, no matter who you are on social media, don't test people's boundaries by spam messaging them. Especially when it comes to fandom stuff.
Everyone here has lives outside of it.
Thought I reblog this again.
While this hasn't happened so far, I need to remind people that if you ever get the bright idea to act on my behalf and harass them, I won't hesitate to report and block you on the spot.
I don't tolerate anybody prolonging this out than it should.
If I'm trying to handle this in the most mature way possible, then I expect others to do the same.
