#but also i'm genuinely surprised at the amount of followers i've gotten here compared to the other sites i use

[demmywolf]

Thank you for 420 follows! :D

[o-craven-canto]

Upon being tagged by @wellmetmat; thanks for thinking of me! I hope you'll pardon me if I don't tag anyone additional just yet.

1. What virtue do you most often see in other people that you feel comparatively deficient in?

First of all, self-confidence, absolutely. I think the shame centers in my brain are accidentally wired to fire at ten times the expected intensity. A minuscule rebuke can make my whole day worse, however objective I try to be about it, and more often than not I feel just barely tolerated by the people around me, even though I'm fairly sure that that is not actually the case. The #1 advice I get from my coworkers is "you need to get better at self-promotion".

Close second, constancy. You wouldn't believe the amount of stuff in my backlog (or maybe you would, it's probably not all that extraordinary an amount). At the very least I should be doing more work on my main long-term creative projects: my future-history novel, and my Ea worldbuilding, both of which are years behind schedule. Though in my defense I'm also doing a PhD, which I'm also somewhat behind with but not ruinously so, so there's that.

2. Show us an object in your daily life that you have an emotional attachment to - tell us a little bit about it if you want! (a favourite mug perhaps? socks with a cute pattern? dealers choice)

Well. I have here this old wallet in blue denim-like cloth, which has absolutely nothing distinctive or particularly endearing, but I've had it since I was in middle school or about there, so. Had it pickpocketed a couple years ago, and I mourned the wallet a lot more than the money, but the thief had at least the decency of leaving it where it would be soon found, with all documents in order, which I guess was nice of them. (They must have had a nasty surprise when they realized the wallet's impressive thickness was almost entirely old receipts and train tickets I hadn't gotten around to throwing away yet).

3. If you could choose, what level of fame would you want? How many people would you want to recognise you?

Hmm, probably some mild subsubcultural level. The point where two blogs can exchange a few posts discussing my work, or where a few people may comment under a story "this reminds me of Concavenator's style". Anything above that would probably take too much attention end energy, and those grapes look sour anyway. This is probably not outside my grasp, especially if I make some progress on that "constancy" thing.

4. Where do you feel language is least adequate to capture, communicate, or express your experience?

You could argue that this question is, by definition, impossible to answer! But to actually try, I do have some extremely strong feelings about biological life, evolution, extinction, and deep time, which I've tried to express in various ways over the years, never quite to my satisfaction. Actually, I've never seen anyone express them satisfactorily yet. I guess it's kind of a mystical thing. You look at mountains and you see them swell and warp under the strain of a continent crawling north. These words I've just written are not adequate. It will sound like a weird niche interest but it's genuinely a major part of what I see when I look around.

5. If you had to come up with a question with the following criteria:

a) it should disuade knee-jerk reaction answers (i.e. it shouldn't be something people are likely to have spent a lot of time considering before)

b) it shouldn't be too specialised (the audience should be general, don't ask about people's top 3 byzantine spice merchants opperating between 754AD-816AD)

c) it shouldn't be needlessly emotionally charged or divisive

d) it should be a question you expect people to have lots of varied opinions about

What would your question be?

Hmm. How about this: if for the rest of your life hereon you could only communicate directly with X people, what would be the smallest value for X for which you'd be satisfied?

[katemagic]

You don't have to answer this, it's not really a question but more of a message for you and I chose here because I didn't want to feel constrained by twitter's character limits.

Your socmed au's that you post on twitter are some of my favourite things ever. You're a master at the art form, conveying so much information and a full, rich story through what is essentially an artificially limiting medium (compared to 3rd pov fic for example). I'm always amazed at how you find ways to enrich the story with all the various chats and posts and so many little carefully chosen details. Also, your characters are just so spot on, sometimes I wonder if you're actually Changbin or Seungmin or maybe one of the manager hyungs or noonas.

I want to promise you that I am never actively waiting for an update, sitting around drumming my fingers, wondering why distantbluesky hasn't posted recently. That has literally never happened. Rather, every time you post an update it is like a delightful and unexpected surprise that absolutely makes my day. A little package of joy specially made for me, a gift that you have given me freely out of your love for the kids and this community.

It is not hard for me to keep up, even when there are sometimes days between posts. It's easy for me to skim the last tweet and then I'm immediately back in the story, ready and excited for the new update.

I feel like you give me so much with all of your stories and esp these socmed ones, which I can only imagine how much time it takes to make all these screenshots with the right timestamps and all the photoshopping and and and... I wish I could give you in return the peace of mind that there is no pressure to post on any kind of schedule and we will all be here, happy and excited, whenever life gives you the time to be able to post. (I also hope you'll mute any users that request updates or pressure you to post - I've seen that in some of the comments but I think it's really only one or two people and I wish I could mute them for you, I think they are very young and don't understand that what they're saying isn't a compliment).

Lots of love

oh my god <333333 I read this message and immediately screenshotted it to save forever because I know on rainy days reading this will be such a mood boost. yesterday was a hard day, and reading this message truly made it so much better. thank you so much for taking the time to send something so thoughtful and kind.

this both is extremely reassuring and just such an extremely kind thing to say. I am genuinely so glad to hear that you're able to jump right back into the story despite delays, that it isn't hard to follow, that my posting schedule hasn't detracted from the story. that was something I was extremely worried about, and I am genuinely incredibly reassured to hear that that's not the case for you. obviously since I'm the one writing it, it's really easy for me to remember everything that happened and follow the narrative journeys, but I worried that this wouldn't be the case for everyone reading it, so this is genuinely a huge relief. I'm so glad.

I also thank you for pointing out the extensive amount of work this takes!!! I've gotten the hang of it, but truly the ratio of "time it takes to write a social media au post" versus "time it takes to read a social media au post" is devastating alkajsdf;laskdjf;lasdjkl it's just.... it is a labor of love for sure and I've gotten the hang of it and am having a great time, but it is a lot of work. and you noticing the specific details I put into it really means a lot. deciding on timestamps, thinking about photo choice, making subtle callbacks and running jokes does take a lot of thought and consideration, as does, of course, the main challenge of a social media au: how to tell a compelling emotional narrative while getting no direct line of sight into the character's heads and also not being able to show SO much on screen. it's a really challenging thing, and I'm genuinely very proud at how I've tackled it!!

writing these aus has been such a good thing for me- I have never harbored any illusions that my prose fics are that impressive (I promise this isn't fishing- just awareness of my own limits as a writer) because there are a lot of things about prose stories that are tough for me based on some of my limits as a writer. social media aus are a great medium for me, though, because they remove the things I find extremely tough about prose fics (DESCRIPTION mainly a;ldjfalksd) and what's left is the stuff I feel pretty confident in- dialogue, humor, emotional beats, that kind of thing. I think I've found a good niche. I want to return to prose fics at some point and definitely have plans to, but aus like this really work well for me and bring me a lot of joy to create.

but seriously, thank you. as you said I don't really get a ton of comments telling me to update, so I can ignore them pretty easily, but I do tend to feel guilty when I don't post on a regular schedule (even though the reasons for it have been because of work OT and dealing with a very challenging personal situation and are completely understandable- though obviously even if the reason was 'eh not feeling it' that would be valid too!!) and worry about people losing interest. I'd keep the story going until the end even if no one was reading it, don't get me wrong, but it is really nice that so many of you have stuck around and are as invested in this story as me :')

okay this is SO long but you seriously made my day with this, truly. thank you so much for messaging me this, it means the world. I'm very excited to spend the rest of the weekend writing, because getting lost in this story is so lovely, and I'm just so glad that you're having as good of a time as me :') I truly appreciate this more than I can say, you are so lovely, thank you so much.