Just a heads up that, while typing this email, I was (am) listening to the track titled “Elwynn Forest (Ambient)” from the official World of Warcraft Soundtrack—which was ripped by some person named “Homer” (per the attached metadata)—which I had illegally pirated some time ago (along with nearly a terabyte of other video game music, all of which I had listened to while playing the actual games in question at some point in my life [meaning I did not just download this stuff to have it for no reason—each soundtrack holds some sort of special meaning for me]), all of which I have had stored on my second hard drive for many revolutions (the drive is named “X-Drive,” and yes, this predates Elon’s co-opting of the letter X, which is also a good reminder that I need to get a new drive for storage sometime soon). And I was (am) listening to this track on repeat, of course. And if for whatever reason you don’t believe me, and you think I’m just trying to be cute or clever or funny or whatever, I have attached a screenshot of my desktop with both X-Drive and the Rhythmbox media player pictured as proof of these claims (see attachment titled “proof.png”).
(context: this is an email response to a reader who provided feedback on my scathing critique of social media found in the first issue of Mognet; essentially, this is a follow-up clarifying some of the WHY of why I left social media.)
Hello Reader,
I really appreciate you reaching out. It kinda made my morning when I read your email. I didn’t know I had this type of influence on people—or even one person, for that matter. I was especially surprised that it was you who reached out, as I was under the impression that, for some reason, you didn’t like me or something, but that was probably just my mind playing tricks, as it often does.
When I first saw your email—(of which I'm usually notified through my phone, but for some reason, it [your email] did not push a mobile notification, so I only found your email once I manually checked Protonmail on my PC using Firefox on a whim [which, oddly enough, was three minutes after you had sent the email itself])—titled “Morrowind, Social Media, and Long-form Writing,” I honestly expected a long critique and/or attack on my work; something like “you misunderstood the plot of the game,” or “you overuse semicolons,” or “you can't just put hyphens between random words for emphasis like that; compound nouns/adjectives don't work that way—it's confusing,” or “you could have cleaned up this and this and that, and it would have been much more concise,” etc., etc. (These fears likely stemming from some deep-rooted insecurity about my own ability as a writer.) So, as you can now imagine, when I read your email and found it to be quite pleasant, it coaxed a genuine smile out of this pale, blue-light-stained face, especially considering that no one has ever emailed me directly about my writing before. And for that, I thank you.
