If you’re hurting like I am, I want you to know I am here for you as we were all there for each other back when Brittana was not yet confirmed to be endgame. Back when ‘BRITTANA IS ON’ was our warcry and we grasped at any crumbs Naya and Heather would give us. What a ride it was...
A lot of us are all anonymous strangers on here and want to keep it that way. In all honestly I barely use this account but for now I keep it in memory of my time spent as an active part of the Glee fandom. I used to be a fierce fan fiction writer and stalwart Brittana fans may remember my ‘furryewokazon’ pen name, or ‘fwok’ for short. Not many of my stories are out there any more but they pop up from time to time in copies others have saved.
I disappeared as a fanfic author for personal reasons and have no intention of returning, but I have always been “around” to keep tabs on a ship and fandom that meant so much to me.
If you remember me, or if you just need someone to talk to, please get in touch. I’ll keep a closer eye on this account over the next 24hrs or so to be there for any of you who need a friend at a time like this.
Santana as a character became a pioneer of positive representation for people like us. The role wouldn’t have been the same if it wasn’t for Naya.
Just know that it gets better.
Back then I was lost and scared. I’m now married to my beautiful wife. In life I am happier than ever. We cut our wedding cake to Santana’s version of “Mine”.
Naya and Heather as Brittana gave me hope. I am so thankful for them and what they gave me as a young woman finding myself in the world. They taught me that love is love.
You are not alone in your grief and together we will get through this by celebrating Naya Rivera’s memory.
Today we present Fwok’s Author Interview! Big thanks to Fwok for participating in the Q&A and for everyone who sent questions, particularly the author or story specific ones! Enjoy!
1) What do you think are your particular strengths as a Brittana writer? What do you wish you did better? (Submitted by Lindsey via email)
Without beating around the bush, many of my stories revolve mainly around the included smut and I do believe that it was my willingness to include that detailed level smut in my writing that did initially draw the wider audience to my stories (c'mon everyone loves a little smut!). In those early days, writing smut was relatively new to me even though fan fiction writing wasn't- I'd been writing for another fandom for a little while but I always grew extremely nervous even writing so much as a kiss. These stories were always quite humorous and alluded to all that sexually suggestive stuff without going into much detail. My early fan fiction attempts were generally well received by the small group of fans who visited the message board where I posted. So when I eventually tried my hand at writing Brittana smut and it too was well received, but by a significantly larger fandom – I felt like I was onto something and wanted to keep writing to keep on getting that incredible (and flattering) response, which of course meant honing my writing skills. I think the smut caught readers' attention and it had readers wanting more. Once I knew I could write smut I just kept on writing it- trying to make it sexy and real without getting too vulgar and descriptive with the particulars and more about how the actions made the girls feel. The sexiest part about good smut is when it's relatable and you can feel what you're reading. For a long time I did consider myself only a smut writer and looking back through my earlier stories I can see many that were solely smut driven as a pure means to give readers exactly what they were asking for. It took me quite a bit of practice to bring my storytelling up to par so that the included smut was no longer just a novelty but a key development point in the narrative I was telling. While I still include smut in my stories, I admittedly find it far more challenging to write and prefer to focus more on the emotions involved, challenging myself to find a balance between the two that works and makes the sexy aspects of my stories translate as more tasteful than obscene.
By biggest downfall as an author is definitely my writing speed and I know it must frustrate my readers to no end when my stories go without an update for months at a time. My writing process is very slow and no amount of pressure to update in any way helps me to write faster- the details just come to me in their own time and I try and word it as best I can for others to enjoy. It is why I enjoy writing one-shots because then I can complete them and publish them in entirety. I don't enjoy making my readers wait for updates of my multi-chapter stories, but the longer stories and chapter breakdowns are sometimes necessary for better story-telling and for my readers of those stories that also comes at a price. I do wish that I was better at regularly delivering updates!
2) What's a short piece of your writing that shows your Brittany is Brittany and your Santana is Santana (even if the circumstances of your fic make them different from canon Brittana)? (Submitted by a Tumblr Anon)
Santana couldn't sleep.
And it wasn't a matter of bad dreams, or over-thinking or even an upset stomach-
It was just that Brittany wasn't beside her and it really was as simple as that.
Lying upstairs in her big bed that she had always shared with Brittany, Santana had never felt so out of sorts.
Once Brittany had left for her sleepover (and after a great deal more sulking), Santana had finally come to terms with the fact that Brittany wouldn't be back until the following morning and she'd gone about keeping herself busy so she'd be too distracted to even notice that Brittany wasn't there.
But dinner didn't taste as good as it usually did even though it was her favourite dish. And her mother had given her an extra serving of peas thinking that would cheer her up- which of course didn't because Brittany wasn't around to eat them all for her and she had to do so all on her own despite her abhorrence to them. Even the dessert she'd earned for clearing her plate wasn't as sticky or as sweet as it would have been if Brittany was beside her and making her laugh with the treat somehow all over her fingers.
Then there was absolutely nothing worth watching on TV and nothing in hers and Brittany's favourite movie collection seemed anywhere near as appealing as when Brittany would pluck something from the pile and explain why it is a good idea to watch that one first. Cartoons weren't fun without Brittany… comedies weren't funny without Brittany… and horrors- well they were still just as scary but without Brittany getting scared next to her Santana couldn't even pretend that she wasn't just to reassure Brittany.
In the end Santana had retired to bed early, in hope of merely falling asleep to escape her Brittany-less existence.
But falling asleep without Brittany beside her was proving to be no easy task. It was why even hours after crawling into bed that she was still wide awake and staring up at the ceiling. Her bed was that much colder without Brittany to cuddle into and even though Brittany's scent still lingered on the pillows and covers it only made Santana miss her that much more.
And then there was the whole matter of being alone in the dark. And while Santana had never considered herself to be very afraid of the dark, the longer she lay there unable to think about anything other than how alone she felt without Brittany… the longer those creepy dark shadows had grown.
The noise of the household had offered a little reassurance at first; hearing her parents ambling around downstairs and the sounds of her brother's noisy video games from down the hall- but eventually everyone else had gone to sleep and the noise of the house had fallen into an eerie silence. Santana found herself jumping at every mysterious creak and groan and before long her imagination was running wild and envisioning the worst.
She was really regretting watching that scary movie before bed now.
The sound of the front door creaking open and then closing again made Santana sit up stock-still as her heart started hammering in her chest. It was the middle of the night and everyone from her family were already tucked in their beds.
She was sure she'd confused the sound when unmistakable footfall followed and the sound of someone steadily making their way around her house carried to her alert ears.
Too terrified to move, Santana strained to listen, growing more and more terrified as she realised the footsteps weren't of someone who was wandering around aimlessly- but someone who knew where they were going. Steadily the intruder made their way upstairs, closer and closer to Santana with every step until the floorboards outside of Santana's bedroom were creaking.
Santana wanted to yell out for help but she couldn't find her voice- and besides she didn't really want to draw attention to herself, hoping the footsteps would bypass her room and carry on down the hall. Not that she wanted them headed for an unaware Tommy either-
The wiggle of her doorknob caused Santana to dive under her covers- now absolutely petrified; clearly the intruder knew she was awake and was coming straight for her.
Again her voice failed her as whoever it was seemed to hesitate at the edge of her bed- drawing out the final moments before her demise- though she did release the tiniest of squeaks when her bed moved under the weight of the intruder.
"San? Are you awake?"
Brittany's sweet, melodious voice cut through Santana's terror and Santana scrambled to fling the covers from over her head, immediately finding herself bombarded with Brittany's familiar scent as it warmed her insides and made her instantly feel safe again. She didn't even recall making the decision to move even a muscle before she'd tackled Brittany to the bed and tucked her face into Brittany's neck. She was still trembling from the rush of emotions as she wrapped her arms around Brittany and held on tight.
Brittany hugged her back just as tightly.
"San, why are you shaking?" Brittany sounded worried.
"You scared me!" Santana accused even though she was so incredibly relieved to have Brittany back where she could see her and feel her.
"I'm sorry, I was trying not to wake you," Brittany apologised.
"What are you even doing here?" Santana asked, confused. She raised her head to squint at Brittany in the dark, though she continued to hug the girl she was now slumped half on top of, holding onto her like Brittany was going to suddenly disappear on her again at any minute.
Brittany averted her eyes and answered in a small, sheepish voice; "I missed you too much. Mr Berry 1 dropped me home."
Santana wanted to grin and smugly deliver an 'I told you so', but she couldn't – not after hearing that admission and knowing she wasn't the only one of them who'd felt so hopeless without the other. And especially not when she knew that Brittany's comment about coming 'home' wasn't in reference to the roof over their heads.
Santana smiled and dropped her head back to Brittany's shoulder, nestling further into her warmth.
"I missed you too."
- a glimpse at childhood for imprinted Brittana, from Push and Pull: Perfect Match
3) Why did you want to write a g!p fic? do you have some clues why people are so fascinated by it? (Submitted by Tumblr Anon)
Honestly- the first time I heard about girl!peen I thought it was really, really odd. I did not get its appeal at all and that's coming from someone who hasn't got any qualms about what body parts a sexual partner has going on. I just didn't understand why it was necessary… but I did eventually cave one day and read it out of curiosity. And while I still perhaps don't quite understand why exactly it works, I do know that I enjoy reading it when it isn't all that the story has to offer. I like when it's just a small detail within the greater story being told which makes the story less about the girl having a penis and using it, to more about how the girl has adapted to this thing that makes her different in the world. I know there is a lot of grey area of explanation of how logistically girl!peen works because in real life it just doesn't technically work that way, but if you can learn to treat it as the quirky AU trope that it is then it can be a lot of fun. I think what fascinates me the most is that there is quite a number of readers of girl!peen out there who would usually exhibit no inclination towards penis at all, so it becomes a really interesting look into the inner workings of human sexuality . Even I initially approached the idea of writing girl!peen as a bit of a social experiment because I found myself starting to enjoy reading girl!peen and I wanted to explore writing it without completely losing all of my loyal fans. So I gradually approached the idea through a number of my stories, first with Sense and Sensitivity which was not girl!peen, but it saw the girls humorously discussing it. I communicated all of my early humour towards the bizarre idea of girl!peens and were!peens that I was suddenly encountering in this fandom that I'd never seen anywhere else before. But still my curiousity wasn't sated and I knew I'd have to try my hand at writing it to really know what it was all about. So came Every Part of You which saw an aroused girl!peen Brittany trying to hide her secret from Santana. I stressed the love between the two girls and tried not to go into too much graphic detail to avoid scarring my larger audience… and it was surprising well received. Of course that only quirked my curiosity even more because on one hand people loved it for what it was and yet others were completely put off by the girl!peen aspect. So I tried again with Boyshorts which really was just me being a bit cheeky and turning the idea of girl!peen on its head. In this story girl!peen Santana miraculously loses her male parts and wakes up all woman- much to her discomfort and insecurity because a girl!peen life is all she's ever known. Her girlfriend Brittany does not have a problem with it at all however and wants to enjoy it for the "miracle" it is while still faced with reassuring Santana that she doesn't prefer her this way- that she loves her girl!peen just as much. I really had a lot of fun with this story and challenged my unsure readers to have another go at girl!peen because technically the penis wasn't present the entire time. Even my Brettiago story, Sins of the Flesh wasn't your cliché genderswap story and saw Santana trapped inside Santiago's body and forced to live in an alternate universe where Brittany was actually a young man called Brett. Again, here I was trying to communicate the familiar love story of these two cheerleaders that resounds within us all, by presenting it in a different way- and in that particular case they both happened to have penises and that's just the way it was. Finally it comes down to my current work, The Beautiful Boy which is very much girl!peen without any tricks or sneaky surprises. The AU Amazon women setting allows me tell a girl!peen story in a believable way. It makes sense that as a baby with a penis, Santana would have mistaken for a baby boy and abandoned with the others to be raised by the neighboring men. She would have been raised as a boy despite her discomfort because as far as anyone knew she was male… until puberty hit and everything she'd been trying to communicate her whole life started to show itself as she grew into her womanly figure. And it makes sense that this much-loved member of their community would not become an outcast once the truth was out, but rather she would be protected by them from the Amazons who could just as likely reject her as embrace her because of her difference. All in all, I've learned that no matter how sneaky I get with my inclusion of girl!peen, it's never going to appeal to everyone. Some people love it and some people hate it and that's just the way it is.
4) Your thoughts on imprinting? I'm torn. Imprinting is true love i guess, but Santana is dependent. How long can it work for brittany? Do you think it could be a happy ending? How did you handle the power dynamics in such a couple? Santana has such a powerful yearning for Brittany, that Brittany could never feel. It feels more like a trap than a dream. You wrote that perfectly in the sequel by the way (Submitted by Tumblr Anon)
I think the beauty of the imprint as it is shown in my Push and Pull Universe is that it can be a big discussion point and people can interpret it however they choose. I know that a lot of my readers find the idea challenging and controversial because they do see it as very one-sided and I can only speak from my own point of view, knowing the characters deeply; to vouch for the fact that they are very much in love. The whole point of Regrets and Regression was to address a lot of those questions and to show that Brittany equally shares the imprint and is responsible for it just as much as Santana. It is just that Brittany doesn't have the advantage that Santana has with her enhanced senses to help her stay in tune with her mate. Their love is what makes the imprint work- if Brittany did not love Santana then the imprint would not exist. In saying that it's not like I don't see the controversial side of it all as well. It was actually quite detrimental to their relationship for the girls to have met and imprinted so very young, because it did create that sense of dependency very early on in life and led to the social out casting of Santana as we saw in Regrets and Regression. The blocked imprint in R+R, while creating much heartache all around, did help them to address a lot of their problems and actually made Brittany aware of the different ways she could have been taking advantage of Santana without even realising. It is that awareness which has made their bond even stronger now because Brittany no longer allows Santana to put her first all of the time, but rather challenges Santana to make her own decisions and do more without her. Brittany now makes a huge effort to encourage Santana to be her own person and makes decisions on behalf of 'them' as a couple to benefit Santana more than herself. Brittany is definitely not all 'take, take, take' as I think some readers interpreted the influence of the imprint on Santana. So while the imprint is very much selfless love, Brittany now makes sure that Santana gets a little selfish from time to time too- even if she has to do it for her! They have more of a partnership now. The key thing to remember is that the ability to imprint is Santana's ability to fall in love. If she had never met Brittany until much later in life, she would have had casual relationships just as her brother Tommy did. These would have been fleeting and underwhelming right up until she met Brittany; where even a platonic relationship with her soul mate would have given her life more meaning than any relationship she'd shared with anyone else prior. Brittany is the key to Santana's happiness and whether she's making Brittany smile because of a small considerate gesture or because she's just given her the best orgasm that she's ever experienced, Santana's just happy with the smile- not how she earns it. It just so happens that their feelings for each other delve much deeper than merely platonic and they are hopelessly in love (which is not always guaranteed between an imprinted pair so they really are the lucky ones). And anyone who doubted Santana was actually ever feeling anything genuine for Brittany because it seemed like the imprint was the cause for making her feel the way she did, had to have seen that Santana without a functioning imprint did learn to love Brittany in R+R– but she simply couldn't fall in love with her without feeling the imprint. I completely believe that imprinting is a beautiful idea and I think I'd love for it to be a real thing! I guess a lot of people misinterpret it as thinking the imprint itself is a thing that takes over and controls your life- but really it's just a light bulb that turns on when you find your soul mate. It doesn't create artificial feelings – it just enhances what is already there.
5) The juxtaposition of adorable and sexy in your fics is an absolute delight. Seriously, round of applause. How do you maintain the delicate balance between fluff and smut so well? (not technically a smut question I don’t think?) (Submitted by Createdforogc tumblr)
I completely credit all of the fluff that surfaces in my stories to Brittany and Santana. It is completely organic and a true expression of my feelings of fascination towards these two characters and their story. Their story affected me, just like it has affected so many of us, allowing me to relate to some elements in a nostalgic way while simultaneously admiring them for that ideal love that we're all searching for. No matter how much smut I put into a Brittana story it just doesn't feel genuine unless I keep them in character and for me fluffy and adorable- especially in those vulnerable moments like having sex- is completely in character. And I do truly believe that if you can capture the intensity between two characters in love within your smut, then you have a winning combination because it suddenly changes the sex into lovemaking. And for all of us devoted Brittana shippers, that's all we really want to see and enjoy over and over again- our knowledge that these two are endgame, confirmed in every universe imaginable.
6) How do you think your push pull brittana is doing right now? also loved her fic :) (Submitted by @sezcretgroove)
Push and Pull!Brittana have been having an interesting time dealing with all of the unique celestial activity that has been occurring of late; And learning how it can dramatically affect their imprint bond. In Regrets and Regression, we learned that the phasing of the moon and in particular a full moon can completely mess up Santana's focus on her bond with Brittany. Since this new challenge has arisen in their relationship, there have been other tantalising developments with the occurrence of both solar and lunar eclipses. Although it only lasted a very brief time, Brittany had a momentary and unexpected taste of experiencing the imprint the way that Santana does, as the imprints sensitivity transferred completely from Santana and was channelled through Brittany for the duration of a solar eclipse. Although it was all over long before Brittany could even truly enjoy it… the girls got another chance to have some fun when a lunar eclipse caused a Blood Moon and for a number of twilight hours they were both suddenly able to collectively feel the imprint in the heightened way that usually only Santana can. As you could imagine –once the initial and overwhelming surprise subsided- it made for some extremely intense lovemaking… and afterwards created two very enthused amateur astronomers!
