#this turned into a ramble
Inbox PSA
this is a sideblog. I cultivate it pretty stringently. meaning, I go through old posts and clip out ones that I don’t plan to interact with again or don’t think contribute anything to the overall conversation, are an early part of a thread that’s since gained more-meaningful contributions, or things that just don’t have any artistic value I need to preserve. if you’re looking for an old post and you can’t find it anymore, it probably doesn’t exist here. that doesn’t mean that I don’t still believe whatever the message was (I can’t think of any times I’ve changed my mind enough to retract something I’ve said)- just that the post was clogging up my blog and I cut it to streamline and make the more-useful posts easier to find.
I say all this to say- there’s ~1300 posts on this blog. read them. search through them for your answers.
if you send me an ask and you never see it posted, it means that conversation’s already been had and I deleted it. it says so on my page before you ever submit an ask. I delete repeats.
also if half the text of your question is apologies for asking…just don’t ask!
look- real talk, I hate that shit. if it’s a bad question or a repeat, I’ll just delete it or snark at you a bit in my answer. if you’ve done me the courtesy of reading through my blog (which-again- I’d hope you do before going into my inbox), you should already know to expect that. you should already know it’s not a malicious thing I do (it’s the individual’s responsibility not to get emotionally-invested in expecting some specific kind of reaction to their prods for attention.) what you’re actually apologizing for almost always boils down to wasting my time, and apologizing for wasting my time is wasting even more of my time and subtly trying to guilt me into reassuring you that you’re not, like I ~love~ getting the same generic opinion-based questions eighty times. except I don’t care about your fears or insecurities around interacting with a stranger online, I don’t know you. I feel no obligation to you and therefore no guilt in being honest that yes- you are wasting my time. when you spend most of your ask apologizing for existing in my inbox. when you repeat a question instead of just putting in the legwork to actually read my blog and engage with what I’ve said and still actively choose to present. if you’re asking something that could be answered by a simple google search or picking up a book yourself for once. if you truly feel like your question has already been answered or is one you could answer by doing a little research yourself- don’t ask it. if you genuinely feel like my thoughts would contribute something new or valuable- ask it! and don’t apologize first. ask your damn question. I will answer (or I won’t). everyone’s happy. we all move on with our day!
