The implosion of LJ and the rise of A03 and tumblr as fannish spaces essentially meant that I was finished in fandom. A03 is great as an archive. Not so great at establishing friendships. tumblr was a visual medium (I don't know what it is now), and I found it more toxic than LJ ever was. It was a bullhorn and I found the interface incredibly clumsy and non-user friendly to say the least. Also, I got the sense that those who were into the visual side of fandom heaved a sigh of relief that they finally had a space. Great. I'm a "word" person. I was easing out of fandom anyway so no worries. A friend invited me to join a Discord group and it was a disaster. Like you, I felt it was exceptionally clique-ish. Pretty soon it became evident that I wasn't liked and a lot of the last interactions were actually hostile. I didn't want the mod to be put in the position of defending me (because people WERE being assholes), so I just quit. I doubt I was missed. So my personal experience with Discord was disastrous. Like I said in my first response, I don't know how you get into fandom now. Writing isn't the magic bullet (in fact, I don't think that many people are writing anymore), and I personally believe that's why people are still reading me, even though so much of my writing is over twenty years old. I have no solutions for you. I wish I did.