Let’s say a user wants to join a dedicated /kbin instance for audio fiction. There are a variety of magazines on that instance, by genre, title, new releases, etc. It’s a nifty theoretical instance. 😉

But this user wants to do more than just interact with the magazines and people on that instance. They want to use their account on this /kbin instance to follow accounts not on that server. So maybe @fraser@m.universetoday.com because they are quite interested in Astronomy, @effinbirds@mastodon.social because they like funny birds talking shit, and @ernest@kbin.social because they are interested in learning more about /kbin. Again, they want to follow all three of those accounts with the account they made on this not-so-mythical audio fiction-centetric /kbin server.

Can they? How do they search for, find, and follow those accounts because those accounts are not (yet, at least) “connected” to the unnamed (it’s hotaudiofiction.social) /kbin instance?

And if they can, how would they see the posts from those un-connected accounts? Like, where is the “timeline” view in /kbin?