#and also i'm ngl i absolutely do generally think about the connections and muses and whatnot

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

talking to a friend who didn't vibe with TTPD and said she can't get over the Matty of it all and the album gives her the ick and she isn't enjoying it and I'm just like... I respect that and you feel what you feel and shouldn't apologize for it... but I'm glad that after the initial 😵‍💫 of it all I was quickly able to appreciate the music for music's sake and the story being told because I find the album beautiful lyrically and sonically and narratively.

[claudiajcregg]

I love these! (Doing and asking :) 🙅‍♀️ 🤔 🏅☀️

Grrr. Tumblr ate the mostly written post because of course it did. Thank you for asking, Mia 💕 These were really fun to answer (and also hard). For someone who's really her worst critic, I do enjoy talking about my process and whatnot. I'm sorry in advance for all the rambling.

(If you want to ask me more, the questions are here ✨ )

🙅‍♀️ What is one trope you refuse to ever write?

I just don't see myself doing incest or bestiality. If we're talking more general things, I can't see myself writing cheating (with the asterisk of this being one member of the couple straying, and that there are possible situations where I wouldn't mind). Also, anything extremely violent, mostly because it's not something I often consume in media.

🤔 What’s one genre you’ve never written that you’d like to try?

Oh, maybe action and/or suspense? My writing style (intimate moments, conversations, just vibes) is not the most compatible, but if the situation arose... Sure! (I guess that, in a past life, I wrote around mysteries and crime and whatnot. I was too young then 😬 )

I also would love to be better at writing stories-within-stories. I absolutely do not have the talent to convincingly seem like the talented writers I'm doing. (Once again thinking of the fluffy memoir fic. And another one, which has a super fun premise, but my writing is failing it with this aspect, I fear.)

And not a genre specifically but collaboration? Again, I have super talented friends. I'd stick out like a sore thumb. I think it'd be fun!

🏅 What is the fic you’re most proud of?

I am my own worst critic but I would still probably say all of them, maybe? I saw something in them that I thought might connect with others and that's why they're out there. Even the ones that aren't (so many of them) and might never see the light of day. Writing isn't easy. It makes me nervous and makes me crave validation.

Anyway. The pageant answer is still true but as for actual ones, but using the way I would mentally refer to them, lol.

Big Block of Cheese 2008. I just saw it's at almost 100 kudos... excuse me what. I just felt it was something special from the moment I wrote it. I think I always would've posted it at some point, even if I hadn't made friends. None of my fics come close to it in terms of "love" and tbh, I'm fine with it.

St. Augustine. Just because it came to me so fast (I think it was mostly written in a morning?) and IDK, I love the scene. This one has broken out from most of my other purely CJD stories, whether it was timing or it getting recommended by the right people. It was nerve wracking writing something pre-canon but I think it went well! It was fun to write. I haven't read it in forever so I reserve the right to remove it from the list.

Obviously, star shine started it all but if I had a third spot... Portland. It's probably one of my flops (everything is, but this one especially) and yet. I recall being so proud right after I finished it and wanting people to read it. (It obviously grew since then because I can't shut up.) It's long, maybe unnecessarily so, but god does it get to me. I was in a writing rut (see next answer) and challenged myself to write 'canon' stories, and I think the two are good.

But... To be honest, the answer has to be my unposted multichapter. I always think it's bad until I read it, and it kinda hits, all imperfections aside. 150k words in 5-and-a-bit months (26/3 to 2/9?), 33 chapters. I wrote 2/3 of that in two months (with 19 being the last one I wrote before 19/5), until my muse decided she was done and I decided to actually change jobs. (I also wrote now-published fics like haunted by the notion or don't want you to go, as well as a bunch of other smaller ones, in between! WTF was I on in 2021? I think the mini reunion altered my brain chemistry.) I've considered just dropping a link to the unedited, unbetaed drive on the server one day, ngl.

ANYWAY. Too long-winded!

☀️ Has anyone ever left you a comment that made your day? What did it say?

UM. All of them? real talk here, I don't get many comments so I love them all. I write for a show that ended 17 years ago, for a small (and surprisingly divisive) ship (their loss - there's so much talent) so I should've known going in. It took me some time to internalize it. I'm also not that good a writer, so I'll take it. Comments mean the world to me, even if it's a "lovely" or "great job." Just taking a few seconds means a lot and writers aren't kidding when they say it's motivating. It's also how I've made friends in the fandom so yeah! comments!

To highlight some rather recent ones!

Haunted by the notion got so many from so different people, and they were all so incredibly nice when I was terrified. All of those broke me, and might be the reason why I've been struggling with a followup! (And why I've been wanting to post again soon, rather than wait.) From the other stories, I have two ~recent ones~ I actually bookmarked because they broke me.

miabicicletta's (💕 ) on St. Augustine. I woke up on a Saturday and I remember reading it from bed and crying. It was so incredibly kind and lovely and I couldn't remember the last time anyone had written anything as long. I still think about it all the time. 🥂 (I've now realized Steph also wrote another lovely one ♥️ That story and the love it got, man.)

krazykitkat's on all's well + her comment on St. Augustine because her stories are some of my favorites. I couldn't believe that someone whose work I adored and have read countless times since I finished the show six years ago had read one of my stories, but had liked it???? Didn't compute. Doesn't compute. She's read many since (see St. Augustine, the most recent one), commented and left kudos on a bunch, and it still... blows my mind. (This one happened while I was flying back from Stockholm and was the first thing I saw when I landed.)

But really - so many people have left so many kind messages over the last couple of years, and I've probably gotten emotional at all of them. That there are people out there who are reading the silly little stories that have come out of my brain... wonders never cease.

[celestialmancer]

❌ // 11:20 pm, tbd ;

low filter bs, i'll delete this later

Emotions come & go in waves, just ride them out, I'm told...

...

Yet it feels lately like the metaphorical tidal waves of emotion I feel are more on par with tsunamis, with the intensity of the way they hit, with how extreme they are, & the fact that they just keep coming in relentlessly has been hard.

& for some reason this shit has decided to target me via just... Finding myself getting. Legit angry with myself anytime I ramble a lot about things I'm passionate about, especially things with my own characters. Lately there's this festering self frustration that tells me I need to shut up, quiet down, knock it off, whenever i just prattle on & on unnecessarily about shit w/ them, & this whole urge that I need to shut up, stop talking, "Stop going on & on about something no one fucking cares about, you're annoying the living shit out of them", so my mind tells me. & I hate it, because it feels like i'm not allowed to even talk anymore wrt my own stuff or muse things w others because the moment I start typing a little too much or talking a little too much, I already am mentally berating myself like "here we go again, how long til they get sick of your ass eh?"

...

Lately I've been getting exhausted, exhausted, exhausted, with the way I seem to immediately turn aggressive with myself for talking ab it too much. Being so hyperaware of how much I talk, of how intense my emotions can run in general over stupidly small things wrt creative work & things w my chars & whatnot or stupidly excitable over things regarding chars I like, is... Its almost like I just have this hatred towards myself for being so overly excitable, so intensely fixated on these things, & this whole ordeal that I just..

I'm, overly anxious over appearing too pushy or something, overly anxious over how I express myself, this whole feeling that I need to dial it back, tone it down shove everything down shove everything down shove everything down stop talking, stop feeling things too much over those things I mentioned, just stop. fucking. being this way. Because its fucking shameful.

The talking on & on & on is also fucking shameful because why the fuck do I think any of what I have to say on my own creative shit matters, right? Stupid to think this means anything & me rambling on & on is probably making ppl drive me away or shut me out or do anything to not have to fucking listen to my insufferable yapping.

& its...

I feel like i just talk too much. In general. I... think this is just connecting to a deeper seated issue of just the fact that I find myself absolutely fucking insufferable when I'm "too much" or whatever I feel is me showing too much emotion & passion on anything. Because I'm supposed to be dialed back, I'm supposed to not let myself show I feel intensely, I'm supposed to not be so excitable over something so small & insignificant because its fucking stupid, I shouldn't be so... Like this.

I mention things w my characters or also w chars i like because that's the main thing rn that's fucking w me in this way & esp w my own lengthy rambling, & watching myself be a fucking embarrassment when i have chars that make me feel things also can cause this shit to rear its head in because of how I've been shamed before over this shit but this also has applied to t hings I like in general, hobbies i ramble on about or interests--& ngl, its bc of this factor that I can't handle just having someone go "ain't reading all that" or anything that insinuates that @ me because it's just a reaffirmation of the very nasty shit i'm telling myself in my head wrt any moment I get even a little too carried away & passionate w these things.

I'm... so accustomed to being dialed back & i find genuine shame & anger when I show anything because i don't feel i'm allowed that. & When it DOES come out when it DOES show because i seem fucking incapable of suppressing it as well, I just can't help but feel instantly like I'm being looked at through a lens of shame, of disgust, of just... repulsion, & like I'm inadvertently driving people away over my intensity of my emotions. This is in ref to my pos emotions but applies to all really. All my emotions. & hell, could apply to subjects im passionate about or that I go on & on about that are rants or what have youk, or just... anything in general I want to express.

Hatred. Hatred. Hatred. I don't know why I'm defective like this.

Was it better to just be emotionally numb like i was years ago? Where I could barely react or express excitement much? Where I didn't have as intense reactions to things wrt the things I like or things that make me happy or things that I am fixated on or attached to or feel things towards or--just, anything? Because this shit just feels humiliating & shameful. I feel fucking humiliating sometimes when I'm so emotionally expressive or something over these kinds of things but that's bc that's all I've been taught I am.

I get reacted to with disgust, with aversion/avoidance, & its just... I get it. I get it, you don't like me being like this. I get it. I'm too much. I don't know. I don't know, I don't know. I think its worse yet when i have had my intensity be treated as some sort of... well, I won't get into that on here, that's more for me to talk abt w friends ig, but its just me being painted in some weird sexual light.

& Hell, the issue of me feeling like I say too much talk too much am too much also extends into when I vent too--watching my vents be lengthy makes me legit feel nasty towards myself because I can't help but feel like I'm too much, yet again, & just... a sries of other things that come out that just...

...No surprise my sona carries the them e of feeling they're too much when I feel that at my core wrt myself.

i don't know how to stop myself from being this way. I don't know how to change. I wish I did sometimes.

it pains me that I can't just be more emotionally stunted like i was years ago after the things i kept going througj (well, stunted yet simultaneously emotionally haywire bc emotional bs always has been intense for me but, my numbness is what showed instead of being overly excitable when it came to pos feelings), before I started going through trying to heal shit.

Because now i get. this shit slipping out from the cracks & im just struggling, struggling, struggling to know how to keep myself composed throughout it all.

i know i'm too excitable. I wish it didn't drive people away. I wish ti didn't put people off. i know i'm overwhelming, i know im a lot. I mean, at least it feels like i put people off for coming on too strong. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

& just. I don't know. This whole thing is a lot of messy self hatred that for once is coming out I guess. Normally I can manage my own view of myself fine but lately that too has been... hard to really figure out wher e I stand in terms of self image.