Just Me

[howlnatural]

the most fun thing about being a fic author is when you know what’s supposed to happen but when you go to write it you realise that, for the event to be plausible, you need to add another 2k of development and establish like six extra things before you can even get to the scene you need to write, and by ‘most fun’ I mean fuck everything someone take this fucking story away from me I’m on strike

[havisham]

well, this fic isn’t going to write itself, but i’m going to wait a bit longer to make sure. 

[pauladeroma]

How come Kat Barrell got pregnant, had the baby, and I didn't know? 😱

[pauladeroma]

@taylor144 Happy Birthday to us!

[purrpickle]

Random Pezberry Thought of the Day #379

One sentence prompt from @pauladeroma:  If you had just one wish, what would it be?

*

“If you had just one wish, what would it be?”

Rachel stared up at the stars, suddenly feeling like the question was so much bigger than it was meant to be. She had to bite her lip before she blurted out, “For us to stay friends forever,” already deathly afraid the girl lying in the grass next to her would disappear just as quickly as they’d become friends once she left for Cheerios Bootcamp next week. Because high school was scary and unknown and Santana was amazing and fearless and suddenly everyone would see her and know who she was - and as her fears welled back up, Rachel had to stop herself from shifting closer to her calm, warm side.

Finally, as the stars swam in her vision, Rachel forced a trembling smile and whispered, “You know; to be the youngest EGOT winner in history,” instead of the yearning, thick, “I love you; please don’t leave me behind,” that clawed and crowded in her throat and wanted to burst free.

[gleeincorrectquotes]

[purrpickle]

Random Pezberry Thought of the Day #378

One sentence prompt from @pauladeroma:  This seat is taken… By my future wife

*

“This seat is taken… By my future wife.”

“Then it’s a good thing she’ll agree to share you for the weekends,” Quinn quipped as she dropped into the seat next to Santana, reaching out a second later to slap her shoulder, “God, you’re disgusting. What happened to you?”

Slapping her friend’s hand away, Santana made a face at her as she brushed her hair back, “Shut up, Q. Just ‘cuz you’s jealous of what me n’ Rache have, doesn’t mean you needs to lie about how awesome I a– hey!”

[purrpickle]

Random Pezberry Thought of the Day #377

One sentence prompt from @pauladeroma:  I gave you everything that you wanted

*

“I gave you everything you wanted.”

Santana swallowed. “Did you?” she asked, red eyes burning as a tear slipped down her cheek before she rubbed it away. Her voice broke. “Because I gotta tell you, Rache, you breaking my heart wasn’t anything I fucking wanted.”

[agathacrispies]

Rebeca Andrade of Team Brazil celebrates after winning gold in the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Vault Event Final on Day 9 of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre on August 1st, 2021 (Source: Getty Images)

[pauladeroma]

Rebeca Andrade is gold!!!!!! 🥇

[purrpickle]

I gave you everything that you wanted

Santana swallowed. "Did you?" She asked, red eyes burning as a tear slipped down her cheek before she rubbed it away. Her voice broke. "Because I gotta tell you, Rache, you breaking my heart wasn't anything I fucking wanted."

[pixel-concept]

Kass gets it

[purrpickle]

Random Pezberry Thought of the Day #374

This is a initial ask and reblog back-and-forth AU from 2015 with @pauladeroma that I recently re-stumbled upon. It made me smile, and I’m happy to share it again within my RPTOTDs.

*

purrpickle

CAN YOU IMAGINE RACHEL GETTING THAT ‘second best teacher ever’ NOTE AND BRINGING IT HOME TO SANTANA, SULKING? I can just imagine how Santana would go about making her feel better…

pauladeroma

I was thinking the same thing. Lol, but imagine if Santana was also a teacher and she was the one that got the first best teacher note?

purrpickle

YOU ARE EVIL.

…But it’s also kind of adorable?

Teacher!AU!

pauladeroma

And Santana tries to hide her note, but Rachel finds it anyway.

purrpickle

Cue passive aggressive huffing Rachel, stomping around their home and pouting, with her arms crossed, no matter how many times Santana tries to kiss it away.

pauladeroma

Then Santana works with their mini students to write a big card with all the things they love about Rachel.

purrpickle

Then she arranges a mini-assembly to make a big deal of presenting it to Rachel in front of their students (I’m seeing Santana as the teacher who goes class to class to do arts and crafts, oddly, while Rachel’s a general ‘in classroom’ teacher), with two students presenting it to her with giant smiles. And of course Rachel looks at the glittery, gluey card and tears up, completely overcome.

pauladeroma

What if she proposes? *.*

purrpickle

“You’re my number one teacher. My number one everything. And I can’t see myself without you. I love you, Rachel Barbra Berry. Will you marry me?”

pauladeroma

Imagine all students squealing and running to hug their legs when Rachel says yes.

purrpickle

They scatter, of course, squealing and groaning, hands over their eyes and innocently retching when Santana wraps her arms around Rachel, kissing her soundly with unable-to-stop-smiling lips. It’s sweet and gross, and the children aren’t sure how to react.

pauladeroma

They laugh, and Rachel tells Santana she wants one, and Santana is all: “Wow, wow, calm down Rachel, we just got engaged, I haven’t even put the ring on your finger. Let’s get married and (whispering) gets my honeymoon on first.”

purrpickle

“You’re right, of course,” Rachel concedes, “But now that we’re officially taking the next step in our relationship, maybe we could start with that puppy I’ve been wanting? Tina’s is having puppies, you know, and I really think we could…” 

And the kids start jumping up and down, drowning her out with shouts of, “Puppy!”, one of the kids popping up to chatter excitedly at Santana, “Pretty please, Miss Lopez? So you can bring it to school and we can play with it?” 

“Yeah! Puppy!” the kids continue to chorus.

tags: santana’s all 'when did this become a group decision?’

pauladeroma

Can you imagine Santana getting romantic advices from 6-year-olds? 

“Let her have the last cookie, Miss Lopez!" 

"Let her use your favorite pencil!" 

"Tell her you don’t care about her cooties!”

purrpickle

“Let her swing on the swings an’ push her!” 

“Give her a flower every day!” 

“And never ever tell her she annoys you even when she does. That’s what my parents do and they’ve been married for forever.”

Santana finds it amusing while Rachel is utterly charmed.

[purrpickle]

Random Pezberry Thought of the Day #373

When Santana showed up at the apartment to tell her and Kurt that she was moving in, the only thought in Rachel’s mind was how long they were going to successfully ignore the fact that they’d had sex the last time Santana had visited.

[tuiyla]

Every Santana Lopez performance  → New Directions group numbers

I like being in Glee Club. It’s the best part of my day.

[nessa007]

Marvel Ladies + punching/slapping

[xochiquetzl]

Your favorite fic author is probably over 30.

(Yes, this is a response to a post going around how maybe it’s okay if adults are in fandom as long as they understand that fandom is for ickle kiddie-boos and walk on eggshells.  Um, no.  Back in my day, we kicked y’all off our yahoogroups so we could post adult material, and rigorously didn’t post adult material if the list allowed you.)

So, back in the day, several of the authors of an LJ community that posted NSFW fic met up and had a group photo, which they posted.  Apparently, some of the 18 year olds said, “Ewwwwwww!  They’re all, like, oooooollllld!” 

There’s actually a good reason for that. 

Writing is part being good with words and part being good at turning your life experiences into something that other people want to read.  Remember my previous rant about how you can’t assume a mystery writer is a homicidal maniac, and you can’t assume that a reader who likes a character has the same personal flaws as that character?  There’s a reason people assume these things about authors. 

See, if you’ve never fallen in love, you might think romance is when the other person brings you a dozen roses and a box of chocolates.  And that’s fine!  That’s romantic, too!  But if you have fallen in love, you might remember the time that you woke up and went to go to class and found a bunch of wildflowers and a plastic ring from a bubblegum machine tucked under your windshield wiper.  And you might remember the half touched, half about to burst out laughing expression on your sweetie’s face when you showed up to class wearing that tacky plastic ring.  You might think that love is thinking the other person is the best-looking person in the world, or that love is wanting to spend your life with someone else.  That’s love, too! Well, at least the second one is (the first is probably just infatuation). But if you’ve been in love before you’ll know that love is also hurting all over because your sweetie’s abusive parent died and they’re unexpectedly destroyed over it.  The latter is worth a million flowery declarations. 

Now, I’m not saying that no one under 30 can write.  Some young people have had very full lives.  And some young people have a natural talent for extrapolating from their own feelings.  Virgins can write convincingly about sex, even.  But the more life experience you have, the easier it is to extrapolate, and the easier it is to come up with the specific details that make things feel real and true.  

If you want to become a better writer, the best things you can do are write a lot, share what you write, and live a full life.  And remember, before you say adults should be banished from fandom:  your favorite author is probably over 30. 

[eternallydaydreaming2015-deacti]

When I started writing fanfics I was 23 years old and I knew several writers who were in their 30s and 40s. I learned a lot from them because they had more experiences than I did. Now I’m in my mid-30s and my writing has changed and the subject matters I write for has changed and do include things I have experienced personally (those of you who know my Prompto stretch marks fics…these are based on things I dealt with after the age of 27). The funniest thing is when someone tried to lecture me on how to write children and that I wasn’t portraying their developments appropriately (based on their understanding of the older develops faster albeit all the subjects in question are born the same year and in my verse just mere months between the oldest and youngest) but mind you I have children of my own and a sibling much younger than me and I’ve taken child development classes so perhaps I do know what I’m talking about. These are things an older writer can bring to the table.

[mysterious-prophetess]

Some of the best fics I’ve ever read were written by older fans. 

I got a private message on FF.Net once about how I wrote so well, and I’m pretty sure my response was basically “I write so well because I’ve been at this for over a decade.”

It’s not just life experience (but it does help), it’s also the fact writing, like any art form, takes time being put into it.

Like the late great Bob Ross said:

[hollyand-writes]

As a 30-something year old fanfic writer, yes, all of this. I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m the best fanfic author out there, but there’s some things that I’m only able to write now just because I’ve got the life experience to do so – and these were often things I struggled to write in my 20s, and never knew why. 

Turns out all I needed to do was be patient, and carry on doing what I was doing. Eventually life experience, or talking to the right person at the right time, meant that I was able to figure out how to write about things I found difficult to write about as a 20-something.  

It also helps that I’ve been a professional full-time writer for 8 years as well. So don’t beat yourself up if you think you’re not as good as another writer – you don’t know what their level of experience and practice are, and chances are it’s probably higher than yours. That’s OK! All it means is that you just keep practising, keep living the best life you can, and it will come in time. 

Of course, not everyone over 30 is a brilliant writer, and not everyone under 30 isn’t – one of my all-time favourite fanfics was written by someone who was 18 when they wrote it, and their turn of phrase and characterisations are still something I love about their fics even now. Just keep doing you, and practising your writing craft (and getting honest feedback can really help), and more than likely you will come good in the end. 

[in-arlathan]

Sorry for hijacking this post but I feel this one a lot. I’ve been contemplating a lot lately how as a thirty-something I’m able to write about things that I never ever considered writing about in my 20s. And, yes, that includes the NSFW stuff I write nowadays. That was near unthinkable for me a few years ago. My life experience and the time I had to process things that happened to me in the past really shows in the way I choose, explore and present themes. I’m also much more confident and self-aware about my contributions to a fandom than I was ten years ago. And I actually enjoy that.

But for the younger writers who get discouraged by the talent of others, I just want to add: Keep going. Keep practicing. Chances are that the writers you admire spent years honing their craft (hence the likeliness of them being 30, 40 or even older). Sure, there are some who are naturally gifted at a younger age, but for most creatives, writing doesn’t come so easily.

I, for instance, have been at this for twenty years now, ten of which I’ve been a professional copywriter. The amount of writing that went from my brain and straight into the trash can is ridiculous. Ninety percent, at least, if not more. I also had the privilege of working with a few creative directors who taught me a lot about the craft – all of them 10+ years my senior, mind you.

Writing is an art form that requires a lot of time and effort and love and dedication, regardless of age or experience. Competitions and gate-keeping only detract from the fun that can be had with writing. The important thing is to keep going and enjoying what you do, whether you are 20, 30 or even 60.

[porcupine-girl]

My copy of Neil Gaimans The Graveyard Book includes the text of his Newbury Medal acceptance speech for the book, and I love this speech so much.

One of the things he talks about is that he had the idea for this book when he was 25, back at the very very beginning of his career, when his son was 2, but when he started it he knew it was a better book than he was writer. Which doesn’t mean he gave up on either it or writing of course - he just set that particular idea aside and wrote other things for 20 years, until he felt like he could actually do it justice. I’m not sure he says this explicitly in the speech, but it’s clear from the stories he tells in it and the context he gives that 20 years of life experience - of parenthood and dealing with things like death - were just as vital to being able to write this book as actual writing skill.

If 40-something Neil Gaiman can openly admit that he couldn’t have written this book at 25, you can’t expect fic writers in their teens and early 20s to, on average, write as well or be capable of writing the same stories as those who have been at it for 20 years either.

Many or even most of your favorite fics were written by people over 30.

[ltleflrt]

I didn’t even know fanfiction existed until I was almost 30, and then I thought it was a silly concept. Why would you write something so “unoriginal”?

Says the woman who wanted to be an author when she grew up, but gave up on writing before graduating high school.

When I was 31, I finally read my first fanfic, and y'all… I was wrong. And I was hooked. And at 32, I started writing my own. For the first time in my life I finished a story, and even more astonishing–I shared it with people. It’s not just about gaining writing experience, or practicing for decades. Some folks come to fandom later.

Don’t gatekeep them. They lost out on something magical that younger folks take for granted.

I’m 40 now, and I’ve written almost 2 million words in 8 years. And the thought that I might have missed out on that completely makes me grieve for my AU self who never discovered the joy of fandom at all.

[unforth]

Meanwhile there’s me, I’ve been online since 1994 and I posted my first fic as a round robin Star Trek TNG story on AOL message boards when I was 12. I didn’t know it was called fanfiction but there I was pretending I was Worf. I submitted a self insert story for a class assignment when I was in 7th grade. I wrote a fix it for the ending of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles cause I hated it so much. I wrote my first “intentional” fanfic when I was 18, for anime fandom, and if you’re curious you can read it cause I tossed up on AO3 and spoilers it’s really mediocre. (Backdated ancient ao3 stuff: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforth/works?page=16)

We’re not good writers solely cause we’re old…we’ve been working our asses of for fucking YEARS. We’ve learned how to distill the essentials of our experiences into compelling narratives. We’ve experimented (literally and narratively) and we’ve failed and we’ve experimented and we’ve taken criticism and we’ve toiled away.

And then kids come into our fandoms and act like we’re the ones who don’t belong…bitch please I’ve been here since before you were born and I never had a reason to leave. You dare? In my fucking house?

And to the younger folk not being dicks…you don’t have to give up what you love. You don’t stop being you as you age. You’ll be you, but more experienced and more knowledgeable and more capable (and more tired, sorry). It never really gets easier to create, but the qualities of what you create for the same amount of effort improve remarkably, and that’s very gratifying.

The future is bright, so keep at it!

[ramblingandpie]

So much of this. I wanted to be a writer so badly when I was younger, but I straight-up did not have the skills to write longer works (time management, project management, etc.) until my late 20′s. Now, I don’t write a ton (I’m on track to hit 50,000 words this year, so… about 4,000 words a month), because I have school and kids and work and chronic health issues, BUT writing actually happens. I finish projects. I understand editing better (even if I definitely skimp on it - but everything I’m writing is for my own personal enjoyment so whatever).

It’s a skill and it takes practice. And not all of the related skills are actually directly related to writing. Honestly I think the thing that was most helpful to my writing was being thrown into some project management and case management, where I had to track a bunch of different things going on, document them, and come up with plans for how to handle real-life problems. I didn’t get that until my 20′s.

I’m 34. I’m currently in law school, and improving my writing and research skills in that area. It will inevitably ALSO improve my fiction writing. Growing, growing, and growing.

[dollsahoy]

I always wonder how much of the “if you’re OLD you can’t POSSIBLY be in FANDOM” attitude comes from growing up around people who were never, ever, not once in their entire lives, in fandom, and who just happen to be older.  And then these young people–who are still young enough to think their personal truths are universal–make the wildly inaccurate assumption that the adults they know, who are not interested in fandom, are that way because they grew out of it, instead of because they were never in it to begin with.

Signed, someone who does not do media fandom and so would indeed count as one of those ~old~ people who isn’t actively invested in it.  Dolls, though…very much still interested in those.

[megpie71]

reblogging to boost signal

[ladycanuck-deactivated20221104]

Here are some facts, folks!

A note - when I started writing fanfic the second time (for Orphan Black/ cophine), I was 24/25 years old. I’m now almost 32 (woo ides of March). The first stuff I wrote I was 17, and it’s still on ff.net because I don’t want to look at it long enough to take down. I didn’t even know that I was a lesbian at 17, OK? Please don’t read that old shit lol. But it’s years of writing that makes a writer. Years of practice.

A lot of great fic writers I knew were over 30, some over 40 and in at least one scenario, over 50.

[fanaticalqueergeek]

I’m not a writer, but I have been a beta for almost 20 years, and I have seen it all. I have beta’d for those at that top of their game, those who are just starting out, and those for whom English is not their native tongue. Those older writers? Most of them come from eras where you either had a beta or were willing to accept feedback (back in ye olde LJ days.) I love AO3 with the fire of a thousand suns, but one thing I have noticed is newer writers……don’t appreciate constructive criticism. I’m not talking the “This sucks why would you write it” comments but the ACTUAL comments that are meant to help them be a better writer. So if you want to be better? Ask for that constructive feedback and think about incorporating it. This doesn’t mean you need to accept every piece and change your fic, but if someone is telling you that you have a good story concept, but it’s hard to read because of grammar, spelling, punctuation, or characters seem OOC, then at least think more critically about what you are writing. But keep writing, because honestly- that’s the only way you get better.