#story was too good for normal fic only thing missing was the fanon smut

[wallofmoth]

the fact that there's more explicit fic than anything else in the dunmeshi ao3 tag rn.... yeah....

[yumi-michiyo]

Unsettle the Ground Beneath You [1/1] - extended author’s notes and meta

Rating: M for plenty of porn

Genre: Slice of Life/Romance/Angst/Friendship/Humour/Rom-com

Pairings: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray endgame, Rachel Berry/Santana Lopez, referenced past Santana Lopez/Brittany Pierce and Santana Lopez/Quinn Fabray

Summary: Wherein Rachel does rubber chicken impressions, Santana doesn't care what's going on as long as she gets sex, and Quinn is just along for the ride (which she doesn't remember getting on). Meanwhile, Kurt has popcorn and he's not afraid to use it. Pezberry with Faberry endgame. Oneshot.

Links: FF.net | AO3

On the origins:

Would it surprise you if I said that Curionenene – plot bunny breeder, giver of feels, and encourager of fic – did not give me the prompt for this?

In this case, silverlightdragon did, over at FF dot net. They actually gave me a list of stuff and asked if I'd be interested in doing any of it. I wasn't, but the last one – the whole 'Santana and Rachel are friends with benefits and Quinn finds out' – was the only one that caught my interest.

Now, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this fandom and Faberry. Most of my fandom output, actually, is fueled by intense rage at canon or fanon I don't agree with. But writing the first bit about Santana and Rachel was a good exercise in writing smut which I don't normally do since I am pants at it, and it quickly grew in size.

On the writing process:

Santana and Rachel make a very interesting pair. I prefer Quinn for Rachel, of course my Quinn, not whatever creature lurks in canon but there is a chemistry between the actresses that probably stems from their dislike of each other that I enjoy, plus the trope of friends-into-lovers is one of my favourites.

The fic began with a quick smut scene, and then Quinn finds out, starts acting weird, blah blah, then Rachel breaks it off with Santana so she can start boning Quinn instead. But this has been done to death in canon, and it's too simple anyways. This is Quinn Fabray we're talking about, and this is Yumi writing Quinn Fabray. My characters love to complicate emotions and spend a lot of time talking about said emotions in highly-charged dramatic confrontations.

The decision to split the fic in two came about towards the end of the first part, where Santana and Rachel break up. I wrote the fic from Santana's POV because I enjoy getting into her head and writing the insults and decided that would be awkward if I were to have Quinn and Rachel getting together, innit? So I decided to split it into two halves mirroring each other (smut in both, smut at the beginning vs smut at the end) with the second half being from Rachel's POV.

The tone of the fic is my natural style; fast-paced, dialogue-heavy, with humour lurking in every part.

On Santana Lopez:

I love writing Santana Lopez. I love how she goes from being Quinn's backup to a character in her own right with a kickass storyline and even better lines. I tried to do her justice in this story, and I really hope I succeeded.

Of course, Santana is an unreliable narrator who misses a lot of stuff due to her priorities being different. She enjoys needling Quinn and Rachel until she starts to notice something's weird, and even then all she does is take her hands off the entire situation (until Kurt gets involved).

On Rachel Berry:

Rachel is Rachel, LOL. Her character is a nod to S1!Rachel, with her craziness toned down a smidge. It's true what Santana says, that regular orgasms have mellowed her out XD

Seriously though, I could write a thesis on how I loathe what Glee did to their characters but I won't. I'll just say that Rachel's transition to Lea Michele in S4 was a little jarring.

On Quinn Fabray:

As the only main character not to have a voice of her own, we aren't privy to what goes on in her head as we do with Santana and Rachel (in turn). You can bet it's complicated, though, based on how much I love writing my emotionally complicated characters.

Readers might notice that Rachel and Quinn don't actually get together in the fic (figuratively, of course. Physically it happens). Instead of neatly wrapping things up over a prolonged period like I tend to do, I had them agree to acknowledge their mutual physical attraction, and work on resolving the many, many issues that lie between them. It's a start, really, rather than a complete fic, but the promise of a beginning is a satisfying ending as well.

Ending notes:

I don't know if anyone reads these things apart from me, but if you're seeing this, thanks for getting this far!

After this, I'm working on yet another Faberry fic and a Marley/Quinn (Fabrose?) fic, both of which are worms Curionenene planted in my head. If anyone's thinking of seeing her work, she doesn't write for the Glee fandom but we're each other's poisoning buddies.