I think the following tumblrs need to know that they ROCKED my world in 2023, and that they are appreciated, loved, and respected 🙌🥵🔥
@toxicanonymity Thank you for the dark and dirty Joelkemon filth, especially weed dealer Joel, Raider Joel, and dangerous Lincoln Joel 🙏
@ladamedusoif I’m bowing down to you right now for your masterful representation of a not-white-coded & middle-aged Lydia in Visiting. We need more and more and MORE fics that are designed to invite readers of every ethnicity to imagine themselves and enjoy the story without tripping over blushing and other white coding. And we also need more grownup women in fic!! 🙏💞🥰
@joelscruff Feelings on Fire broke me over and over again, in so many delicious ways. I know you had a rough patch last year, and I hope that you don’t feel pressured to write on command. Your story is yours, and I hope you tell it the way that YOU want to 💕
@spacecowboyhotch I adored Ambrosia and Tied together and we need MORE of your gorgeous storytelling in this fandom! 💖 I love soft/hot and dreamy, and I definitely think we need more black/poc reader inserts. Your writing is so detailed and layered that it left me breathless and I’m dying to read more from you!! 😍
@netherfeildren Art gallery Ezra took my breath away. I devoured the rest of your fics in turn, and your Mercy for the Disturbed broke and reshaped my heart and gave me the best/worst writers envy I’ve had in a long time. Kudos to you for draining my brain 😂
@juletheghoul Paradisum?!! 🔥 Gold Rush!!? 😍 Dulcis??? 🫨 and Silk 🤤 And I know for a fact that you’re one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met here. ❤️🔥Love, your secret admirer 😘
@hier--soir A Lover’s Pinch killed me. I am writing this from the grave. I am eating dirt, bestie. Please ship literature professor Joel to me immediately? 🥹🙏
@inclusivepedrolibrary I LOVE YOU SO MUCH YOU DONT EVEN KNOW 😍😍😍
@atticrissfinch We need to have a word about convenience store clerk Joel (🥵🔥😭HOT!!!) and about Wrong text dom! Joel (🔥🔥🔥🌶️🌶️🌶️😭😭😭 HOTTER!!!) Im mad at you for writing so hot and these men not being real
@bageldaddy 70’s porn star Joel is killing me. Thank you 🙏🥹❤️🔥
Paper is the traditional gift for a first anniversary. What could be more fitting for a pair of academics still trying to figure out their future?
A year ago, I posted the first chapter of my first foray into fanfiction and my first attempt at writing fiction since I was a teenager. Visiting took a lot of courage to write, let alone to post; but the sheer pleasure in drafting and planning Ben and Lydia’s story made me feel I should share it.
There are still three chapters of the story to come, and I know I’ve been slow and not a very good or engaged writer.
Life has been complicated lately, and for various reasons it has just been easier not to be on here as much (if at all - and if it was noticed!) But I had to mark their anniversary, somehow. So, a year in, and with the story still unfinished, here are some reflections - and, if you read to the end, a (slightly smutty) sneak peek for chapter 13…
I launched the two dorks into a fic world dominated by DBFs and age gaps and all sorts of other tropes that Visiting just wasn’t, never would be. The tropes have shifted somewhat but their story still doesn’t speak to any of the big ones. That’s Ben and Lyd, though. They never were ones for following trends.
At times I’ve felt strongly that this wasn’t a story anyone really wanted, that it was my fault for writing it badly. Some chapters felt both vital and nigh impossible to write, as I second-guessed myself and the readership and wondered what I was doing wrong, exactly. And then sometimes a chapter I’d poured everything into just… went unseen, it seemed.
And then I would receive the most beautiful comments and responses to the story, as readers find it and connect on some level with Lydia, Ben, and their little world. In my sort-of Tumblr hiatus I know these comments have built up and I need to respond properly to each and every one. But know that I am eternally grateful, incredibly touched, and that many of them have made me cry. The same goes for the people who recommended the story on fic lists, who sent wonderfully kind anons about the work, who have made me want to keep going with it.
There is a bittersweetness to the anniversary of starting Visiting. There are people on here who were such vocal, enthusiastic cheerleaders of the story both in public and in DMs who just fell away after a chapter or two. (I still wonder if they have been keeping up.) There are people on here who I was so close with, who knew the motivations for the story and its inner workings, who chose, out of the blue, to act as if it - and I - no longer existed. Such is life. Such is the nature of online friendship. But it’s particularly strange when someone has been there for the drafting and writing and then…isn’t.
But such instances are in the minority. The readership for Visiting might be small, but it’s brought me into touch with some incredible, wonderful, generous people who have become firm friends. There is no greater feeling than knowing that your little story about two middle-aged academics finding themselves falling for each other when they least expected it is liked - heck, loved, even, by even one or two other people. (Tell your friends! More readers welcome! But you guys are the best ones.)
A final, more general observation about this story and why it exists. We have often seen statements on here about how dark!fic is “healing”, a way for people to work through experiences and issues in their own lives. I would argue that softer fic is healing, too - that healing doesn’t have to be sought or validated through creative explorations of brutality, violence, coercion and pain. It can be, of course - but it’s just as valid to seek it in stories that are softer, kinder, warmer, even. Lydia’s conviction that she is permanently broken, that she is fundamentally unlovable, could not be undone with anything other than love and safety. And the story does seem to have reached some people in that way, and for that I’m really delighted and proud.
And I’m really touched and grateful to all of you who have stuck with the story, have got in touch to comment, to ask if there’s more, to talk about how much you love it. You have no idea how much it means, truly. There is more coming: three chapters more, in fact, if I can just get my brain together. But, as a thank you and an anniversary gift, here’s a little bit from the next chapter:
You rest your head on his shoulder and bring your arms around his waist, hugging him close to you under the blankets as you enjoy the symphony of nocturnal sounds in the back yard.
He chuckles as you hold him tight. “You must know by now I’m not going anywhere, Lyddie.”
“Don’t laugh when I say this, but - sometimes I feel like I need to hold you extra close, just to be sure you’re real.”
He tilts his head and smiles at you. “That I’m real?”
“That you’re real. That all of it is real, Ben. I’m not used to things… working out, I guess. All my life I was left lonely or things fell apart, and - I still have to remind myself that yes, this is real, I’m not dreaming.” You sip your champagne thoughtfully as he kisses the top of your head, broad hands caressing your body.
“It’s real, love.” He kisses you again, gently squeezing your hip. “Even if I sometimes wonder how I got so lucky.”
You push away the blankets and wrap your arms around his neck as you begin to make out, his hand snaking up under the skirt of your floral-print summer dress and pressing greedily into the flesh of your thigh.
He breaks away to kiss and suck on your neck, pausing to whisper in your ear: “Does this feel real enough, baby?”
You give a little cry of pleasure before breaking into fits of giggles, grinning as you feel Ben’s smile against your skin. “I guess it’s pretty real, Ben, as these things go…”
“As these things go?!” He pulls back, leaving a parting kiss on your collarbone, before spreading out the blankets a little on the wooden decking. “Lie back, Lyd, and I’ll give you real.”
And now, if you don’t mind, I will enjoy a celebratory ice-cold Corona, and raise it to my idiots-in-love who are still waiting for their happy ending.
👾💜spread the love to the people you’re glad you’ve found in this corner of the internet 💜👾
With gratitude in particular for being such a phenomenal reader of fic! 🌹
HI ROSE! 🌹
I have been feeling down for the last few days and this message was SUCH a welcome surprise!! Thank you so much for thinking of me! I’m very glad to have found you, too. Your posts are always insightful and your writing is a treat.
And aw shucks, I just know that nothing tickles a writer more than feedback about what they poured into their work, so that’s my main goal when I read.
This is a writing sideblog/reblog for @ladamedusoif (that's me, Rose) - follow and turn on notifications for this blog if you'd like to be kept up to date with my fics!
Sunday fic rec for my Pedro Character lovers 🇨🇱👖🐍 forever
VISITING by ladamedusoif on AO3 a Mr. Ben (SNL Pedro Character) Lydia is 42-(😎) about a visiting professor from Europe trying to jumpstart her life at a small college in the Northeast. Professor Ben Morales is her first friend. I love this one so much- I’m new here and haven’t been able to find her on Tumblr so tag her if you know her user name please!!!
Please tell @ladamedusoif that I adore *adore* ADORE Visiting and her skilled and loving representation of a middle-aged reader insert, Lydia. ❤️❤️❤️
She needs to know that I love her writing and that reading Visiting made this 40-something Pedro fan feel seen and included in the fandom. I enjoy fics of all kinds, but “grown women” stories are hard to find among the flood of early 20s reader inserts.
And on top of writing complex, emotionally-layered characters, soft & hot sex, and bringing Ben to life, she *also* wrote Lydia so carefully as to include readers of all races. Not only is that hard to do, but it is SO important to POC fic readers. Brava!!! ❤️❤️❤️
