#i'm... mildly worried this might be misconstrued somehow

[lxveille]

on numbers

(or: veille thinks, and then proceeds to type, just way too much)

so, back in november i started writing fic again. i’ve written fanfiction on and off since i was in middle school, for various fandoms, and i hadn’t written it in ages when suddenly i decided i wanted to write a thing about dancing at a bar with soonyoung. so i wrote, and then let myself get this crazy idea that maybe if i enjoyed writing it, someone might enjoy reading it.

as i mentioned before, i’ve written in a whole host of fandoms and on various platforms over the years. when i decided to start sharing it on here, i tried to go into it and maintain a different kind of philosophy about sharing fics than the ones i’d had in the past. so, feel free to skip on by, but i’m going to ramble a bit about that, because i would probably not still be posting things at all here if not for it --

i think dissatisfaction is kind of innate in humans, or at least modern humans. and social media is a hotbed for comparison and the unhappiness that can come with it. i’m sure it’s not just an advent of the internet; i’m sure humans have always been a bit fixated on being able to quantify their success -- but being able to have a count of of how many people “care” about what you’ve done (via likes and followers (on platforms beyond just tumblr!) and so forth) is a tempting trap. i feel my worst on here when i find myself looking at numbers or when i see other people celebrating milestones and such, because that’s what draws me into the whole horrid thing of comparison, when i find myself boiling down what i’ve done to numbers as if they are an indication of anything at all. i feel my best when i actually go back to the thought that made me post the first fic here in the first place: maybe someone will enjoy it too. when i remember how big of a number one really is. because it’s not just one speck of dust, but one human (a whole person! with their own lives and priorities and finite existence on earth!) out there who spent time with something i wrote and who, in the end, tried to communicate something back about it.

none of this is meant to invalidate comments other content creators have been making. of course it would be nice to get more feedback; it would be dishonest to claim that i wouldn’t like it. i guess i mostly mean it as a potential mind-frame shift for some of those who are discouraged by the amount feedback they currently get.

(and perhaps this is me being a cynic, but i wonder: if were the standard for me to get a 100+ notes on something, would i instead be wondering why i don’t get a 1000? the honest answer, for me at least, is that i probably would. again, tying back to the idea of dissatisfaction being innate. and perhaps it is natural because it’s part of human nature to want more and to want to do better, but this mindset has its obvious pitfalls)

the truth is we can’t really change how other people interact with our content; we can only try to change how much we value these things, how much we value the number ‘one’ and how we factor those things into our reflections on how valuable/successful/good our work is. and i know this might sound like it’s just another long-winded way of saying ‘just write for yourself, not for notes!’ -- and again, i understand why these kinds of comments are frustrating. the key problem with those kinds of remarks is that if we wrote just for ourselves, we wouldn’t bother posting it in any kind of public space. but i guess in lieu of that, the philosophy that keeps me going perhaps boils down to write for someone, not for notes.

of course getting away from the number-centered mindset isn’t easy; i fall back into it from time to time, and i can get quite down when i do. and it’s not like it’s limited just to tumblr and writing. the fixation upon higher numbers is so pervasive nowadays (it is among the reasons why i’m basically nonexistent on most social media platforms; but at work it’s not uncommon for me to hear young people, who are really only just in the beginning of forming their online presences due to age, stressing over the amount of ‘likes’ they receive on one post or another.)

even ‘write for someone’ can be tricky when tumblr can feel pretty cliquey and isolating at times, for me at least (which can honestly be as discouraging as the feedback thing -- but that’s a whole other, mostly-me issue). this is when i take a step back and think about my experiences as a reader, about fics that have made me smile or clutch at my chest or laugh. when i remind myself that there’s a decent chance i’ve written something that could come to someone else’s mind when they do the same thing.

and on that last note, it’s difficult not to close this all out by encouraging it to be two-way street kinda thing. being a reader can feel like a fairly passive thing, but as soon as you are invested (when your mood changes because of a story, or you find yourself rooting for a character or building hopes for what might happen next, etc), it becomes active. you essentially become the someone it was written for. let the creator know you’re out there.

alright. that’s it.

all the best and all the love to you, regardless, but perhaps an extra dose of love if you made it this far ❤ thank you.