#dearest void

unpopular opinion: I really like the middle?? Like when you’re in the middle of a first or second draft and suddenly you hit a flow, and you get the characters and you know where the plot is going so you can just write? I was tempted to say that my favorite part is the pre-drafting and planning part, because I truly love daydreaming and visualizing scenes and hammering out weird logistical quirks. But when I go to transfer those bits to paper, it always becomes a bit of a drudgery because they’re already! In my head! They’ve happened! I just have to get it out. But the middle, oh, it’s like a runners high. I don’t know what’s going to happen, it just spills out right as I figure it out. I can let the characters surprise me. I can let myself surprise me. Often, this is the point in a draft where some motif or extended metaphor or theme I’ve been subconsciously writing around becomes intentional. So yeah, tl;dr, considering I just accidentally wrote a love letter to middles I think that’s probably my favorite part of the writing process, lol.

Me: “yessss time to play TAD at max volume while doing all my chores and perhaps making soup!!!!!!”

but, of course, the, ahem, "big three" were my first real experience with internet fandom. While I don't know that it was the best introduction to fandom I could have had, I distinctly remember my first fannish interaction, and the joy of realizing that, oh, there were other people who liked these things, too! Other people who wanted to be just a little too enthusiastic, and would put up with me when I was as well (neurodivergent people). So really, even with all the weirdness of getting into fandom during that very distinct era, I can't regret it, and I'm certainly glad it led to me still being here in fandom spaces now :)