#cherishmimi

[cherishmimi]

Bechloe Fandom!!!

I hope you guys haven’t forgotten about me…👀

It’s your time to shine.

Update to Bigger Than Us, Beyond Bliss Coming Soon!

-Mimi

[cherishmimi]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

UPDATE: Cherished Affliction - Chapter 41: Epilogue: Give To Me Your Leather, Take From Me My Lace

My Last Cherished Affliction Authors Note

Well, here we are my loves. The end of this journey.

Before we go, I’d like to take this time to tell you all why I began writing this fic and thank you properly for hanging in there with me this long.

Though I had been reading and dabbling in writing for a while as a young inexperienced teen writer and in other fandoms, I never truly felt like my journey begun until I began writing this story 13 years ago for this fandom. At the time, there was so much discourse around Fifty Shades of Grey and what a horrible job the author had done depicting BDSM and all of its intricacies accurately and it made me curious.

I personally liked the concept of a tortured, detached, young billionaire that had a past and was using kink to numb that past, I was just incredibly unimpressed with the execution. So, I searched in the fandom for something that was similar to scratch the itch and only found two stories that satisfied me. One was ’These Strange Steps’ by thememoriesfire - a Faberry fic and ‘Consequences’ by hathfury - a Brittana fic. I noticed some similar themes in both works.

Both stories used Dominance and submission as an outlet for the characters and at times depicted bad kink etiquette as well as the use of kink as a shield from emotional attachment. Both showed a resolution and acknowledgement of why the etiquette was bad, and had a character that ultimately fell for their partner and had to navigate the dynamics of BDSM alongside their vanilla relationship in a healthy way. Consequences, in particular, was also the first fic I ever read that introduced me to futanari. In other fics, I noticed that the niche of futanari was primarily a vehicle to skate around a pregnancy storyline or feature penetrative sex outside of using a strap on. But I viewed it as a vital part of what could make a main character more complex. A plot device first, vessel for erotica second.

I decided that I wanted my 'tortured, kinky, billionaire falls for regular girl' trope but I wanted it realistic. I wanted depth and I wanted a backstory. I didn’t want Quinn to exist as some fantasy only - I wanted her to seem like a real human who had gone through things. I wanted her relationship with kink to be more than just steamy sex scenes. I wanted her body to be more than just a silly little niche. I wanted the reader to feel like they could believe that this particular part of herself had been hard to navigate and maybe led her to bad choices and emotional instability. I also wanted to flesh out what it looked like to see two people falling for one another from different societal classes and how the differences that came with that might impact a relationship. Most of all, despite it being an AU fic, I wanted the characters to still feel familiar. I wanted to connect them to the show as much as I could while still building my own world for them.

I understand that for some, it was not an enticing fic. I won’t forget the angry reviews from readers who didn’t like the concept of reading about a woman with a different sexual organ engaging in sex with another woman. Or the hate I got for some of the harder scenes depicting Quinn’s mistakes as a Domme or my writing in general. I know that there were some that reported the story multiple times, and that ultimately succeeding in getting it deleted from Archive of Our Own all together. But it didn't matter.

I experienced my own tragedies, triumphs and life changes and I ultimately grew as a writer all while keeping these characters in my heart and never losing sight of what I envisioned for them. Because I refused to abandon this story, or all of the people that were reading it.

I knew in my heart that there was a loyalty that existed in each and every one of you and that is what ultimately kept me going. I could not have written a single word without your support and comments of encouragement. Your comments, messages, kudos and subscriptions reminded me that there was always someone out there waiting to read what would happen next and on my worst day - that fact gave me the strength to write. I’m sure there were many that gave up on the story, or got tired of waiting, but there were so many of you that stuck around. Some of you since the beginning, and for that I will forever be grateful.

I share every part of this accomplishment with all of you. My loves. So, I wanna say from the bottom of my heart - thank you.

Over five hundred thousand plus words and thirteen years later, I hope the conclusion to this story is everything you ever dreamed of from the very first chapter, as I said before. I hope you take something powerful and inspiring from it, and cherish it. I hope that you tell me all about it! About how it made you feel, about what it feels like to get to the end.

And I hope that you all continue to read and support love stories of all kinds.

I have so enjoyed our time together. This isn’t goodbye, I promise. I’ll see you soon!

I love you all!

-Mimi

[cherishmimi]

CA Update News:

Hello!

For those of you wondering for the ONE MILLIONTH TIME, I am not abandoning the story.

As you all know - or maybe you don’t - I am a real person, and I pursue music for a living! I’m currently touring on and off this season (super exciting for me right now! Yay, I can pay my bills!) and that has kept me extremely busy. Touring requires quite a bit of focus and is extremely important to the artists that I work with, so I haven’t had much down time to write in between being completely present for them!

I know that it has been some time since I was able to get another chapter out to you guys - but I swear that it is coming. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe in putting out half-assed work, and these last three chapters need to be focused on completely and not thrown together! So be a little patient with me, please!

Also, please be mindful of how you encourage fanfic writers to update. Making them feel bad for taking too long or accusing them of abandoning something that they are doing for pleasure can feel a little abrasive at times, or even manipulative and tone deaf. We love writing fanfic, but we have real life too, and it requires a lot of balance.

Love you all!

- Mimi

[cherishmimi]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/40825455/chapters/132962674#workskin

Update Posted!

[cherishmimi]

Wattpad Conversions of CA

Hi my loves!

Just wanted to reach out to all of you and thank you for reading CA and still commenting after all of this time. Your love for this fic is what is keeping me going! Thank you! I also want to update you all on an ongoing situation:

I've been made aware that the Wattpad user, 'edits_727' (on Ao3 their user name is bishopsbxtch) is still copying and pasting my chapters as I update them to Ao3. This started as a conversion originally done by the Wattpad user 'Switcho_16' and I believe they stopped taking the chapters around the time I took a hiatus and most likely got tired of waiting for me to come back. Now, this user is continuing the conversion, having copied and pasted each update since I returned to posting the story.

I know that to a lot of people, converting stories to different fandoms seems harmless - but it absolutely is. CA is an AU, meaning that there are differences in its universe than the Glee universe that it's based from as a fan work, which can be incredibly time consuming to create. I don't say that to downplay other non-AU stories, I say that to highlight just how much work I put into the story as a whole. The updates take so long because I spend so much time making sure everything I write connects and is cohesive. Not to mention the original characters and backstories I came up with, making sure there are no plot holes, the research I've done - this is hours and hours of labor that I do because I had a vision SPECIFIC to this fandom. To me, it is a slap in the face to see another person simply copy and paste and change the names. Before, when I made a post about this, a person messaged me and told me that this was 'flattering' and that the users on Wattpad never took credit - which is A. not true, because there were other versions that have been deleted that absolutely did not credit me as the author, and B. this person simply says that 'the story is a conversion of another on Ao3' and never lists my name. Most of all, THEY DO NOT HAVE MY PERMISSION TO DO THIS. Period.

There is nothing flattering about this. If you crave content for your fandom like CA, go out and create something similar, or even 'inspired by' with the author's permission and knowledge - that's flattery and even more so, that's real creativity. Craft your own work for your fandom.

CA exists because of my love for BDSM and the lack of well written stories about it in the Glee fandom. I hated the Fifty Shades series because it was a terribly fleshed out story that demonized that lifestyle for the sake of a few poorly written smut scenes with a main character that had no boundaries and was a terrible example of what a real Dom looked and acted like. It was glamorized for all of the wrong reasons and I hated that. So, I thought I could do a better job with Rachel and Quinn specifically due the character traits they have on Glee.

Not only that, but I wanted a story that accurately covered body dysmorphia and the ups and downs of falling in love with someone who is emotionally unavailable. The G!p tag was an interesting rabbit hole that I had journeyed down at the time, and I wondered what it would be like to create a story that didn't just use it as an excuse to get out of writing smut scenes between two women whose bodies were the same. I wanted to know what kind of plot could be crafted and how realistic I could make it. I wanted to know what kind of impact going through something like that would have on a person. I wanted a real story, a journey for the two characters.

Of course, this story is just a fanfiction, but I worked so hard on every aspect of it and I have gone through hell to keep it going. I don't want other people taking it for other fandoms. I just don't feel that it is right. I have messaged the 'author' and calmly explained how I felt to them. I have also asked them to take the story down and to stop because they don't have my permission and I'm hoping that is well received, but in the meantime I am encouraging ANY of you that are doing that in any fandom to stop.

As I said before, take the time to create your own works and build your fandoms with the stories you want to see. It is much more exciting, and it comes with ups and downs but that is the beauty of fandom and fanfiction itself.

Love you all.

-Mimi

[cherishmimi]

A Little Life Update!

Hello my loves! I just wanted to update you all on how I’ve been.

As you guys know I lost my dog of 14 years in February. It’s been insanely tough and I’ve been taking it one day at a time while mourning him. In the meantime, I’ve been playing a lot of shows and gearing up for a second leg of the tour that I am on which starts next month - which I’m eternally grateful for both financially and career wise (yay!)

Since our finances have been a little out of whack since I lost my puppy - the entire cost of his care was $3000 - I’ve just been working extremely hard to make up that money.

It’s been mentally very taxing and navigating that seems to get tougher and tougher. I have my own band and play in others but find myself in a tough spot this week after being verbally assaulted by a manager of one of the clubs I play in. I’ve played at this club for two years and never had a problem with any of the staff and LOVE the band of guys I play with. Unfortunately, I forgot how unsafe many environments can be for black women. I haven’t been humiliated or felt like I was in that much danger in a really long time.

Because of that, I’m struggling with going back to work there. The band of guys I play with did very little to support me and though it will cripple me some financially - I’m convinced that it’s not a safe environment. It’s a tough decision for me only because it’s means I’ll be losing out $600 of my income at least this month, until I can figure something out. It’s triggered a little bit of PTSD and been extremely traumatic, so I’m working on figuring out how to move forward from that.

In the meantime! I’m writing and working diligently on the last two chapters of CA. I have also NOT forgotten about BTUBB. I also *think* I may wanna look into self publishing an original novel? Idk. I don’t know where to start, but since there’s a chance I will be leaving this particular gig, I feel like it’s a good time to invest in myself somewhere.

Regardless, I just wanted to let all of you know that I’m okay! And that updates are coming. Thank you for supporting me and being patient.

Love you all!

- Mimi

[cherishmimi]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Quinn attempts to unravel her past in therapy, while the launch event for her new collection looms. Eventually, things come to a head. 

[cherishmimi]

Cherished Affliction Inspiration/Reference Visuals Chapter 32: Quinn Smoking/Haircut