This is a general note to Guest and anyone else interested that hopes to discuss some criticisms and comments that have been raised and made along the way.
I agree that there are issues with this narrative, and have acknowledged such for a while (at least between us two). What makes it hard to address those, however, is that this is not, truly, a fic. And nor is it only written by one person who can control everything that happens, or where things are led. It's a joint endeavor, which lends it to a set of more difficulties than other, actual fics, could theoretically have. And at this time, talking about what has been posted, it wasn't known that we were going to share this headcanon as is. It was only for us to have, personally. We didn't know we were going to release it to be read and seen by others. So, even with that in mind, let me try to give some insight into some things that make it hard to make this a "perfect" item, if there is such a thing.
Firstly, to address Dani's character, I freely admit that I have only seen Dani's scenes in Love, Love, Love, and thereafter only experienced her in gifsets and other people's takes on her since. Her true, canon character is almost a blank canvas to me, which is why I have been having fun making up her character for this headcanon. My partner's knowledge of Dani, is, I believe, more than mine, she actually having watched her on the screen, but I'm not too sure much was provided to work from, anyway, and hasn't mentioned anything being too out of character. So Dani in this headcanon? She's Dani only in this headcanon.
Secondly, we've only posted about half of what we've done with this headcanon so far. It's been written over six months, not consolidated at all, and in differing times of interest and motivation. It doesn't have the ability to have very much consistency, as scenes can be texted back and forth for days before "finishing". We're in different moods or interests, which is why things go in and out and change topics suddenly (this is more heavily done later in the headcanon, I believe). Also, because we've only posted about half of what we've done so far, issues that are not being addressed with what's been currently posted may be addressed in later chapters. Not 100% of them, but some. I know that for a fact.
Thirdly, working with someone who has different takes on things than you do makes the flow of a narrative tough to completely keep in check at times. For both my partner and I. I will say that working with someone who prefers to make things Rachel-heavy, and who has always identified more with Rachel, it invariably makes the flow of this headcanon Rachel heavy. No matter if we add in more of the other girls or Dantana, the cards have already been stacked on her side. That's not an excuse, not really, and I'm certainly not intending to suggest that I'm blameless, because I'm not. I'm meaning it more as an admission and agreement. I personally could have been better speaking up about it, pushing for more scenes and things strictly about Santana and/or Dani in the beginning of this headcanon, but I didn't. I didn't think we needed to as we both already knew we were going to add in scenes when we wrote the fic. Since this was only for us, why spell everything and every moment completely out if we already knew it?
Fourthly, even though it wasn't perfect, it was at least tried to be pointed out in the middle of the last chapter that we wanted to make sure it was shown that Dani and Santana were good by themselves, and hadn't needed Rachel. And you know what? Even if that wasn't perfect, even if it could have been explored at that moment, it didn't have to be. Because this is a headcanon. Between us. At that moment, we were still planning on sitting down and writing this out. This was/is a bare bones project. It's not supposed to flesh everything out. It was only supposed to be in place for us to refer back to and expand from. Smut aside, which still isn't perfect because these are texts, this is only an outline. So things not specifically stated in excruciating detail are still planned and meant! This isn't a finished fic. It's going to be lopsided and ruled by whims and gloss over things we found not interesting to explore at the time. We hadn't even decided to share this yet, either, so we were under no responsibilities to make sure this was even or fair. It was just for us.
Fifthly, the comment about it being Santana's night but actually being Rachel's night instead? I didn't think it had to be said or firmly stated that because it was Santana's night, she was choosing to use it as being dominant that night. She's Santana. She's proud of what she achieved, and she wants to continue being in control and using that pride. She's been talking about trying what they did before again. It's her choice. But again, that didn't need to be spelled out because this is an outline. Things not made clear in here would have been made clear in a real fic.
In short: this is a headcanon run by two people who text things back and forth. This is not a fic. It's uneven and biased and has problems, hadn't been under the responsibility to make it perfect for consumption as it was originally only for our personal use, has only had about 50% of the current run posted, and it's not finished. That's all this can be.