Not So Berry - Pink Gen in a nutshell

Disclaimer: the only names I chose for this Generation are the twins' and Mary Anne's. I didn't choose the names Justice or Brandy (or Chi, Brandy's little brother) and I don't like them, but I tend not to get into my spares' lives that much and let their kids have those names.

Also, the last parts of this blog hint at a mainly physical homosexual relationship. If these things bother you, I'd advise not to go further!

Penny Berry always knew that her life would be very different from her twin sister's. Phoebe was extremely intelligent, valedictorian, had a girlfriend and had a great possibility to be accepted into a prestigious university. Penny was creative and a good writer (at least that's what she thought) but not much else.

All she wanted to do once out of high school was to get out of her parents' house, secure a job and steer far away from her sister's successes, but it turns out that life wanted to give her one last bite in the butt when Phoebe lost the lease on her new house and had to move in with her, shortly followed by her shiny new girlfriend Sloane.

She had found a wacky little house in Del Sol Valley, clearly not big enough for the three of them, but now they somehow had to fit. Leshawna, who had been against them moving out in different houses, was really happy with the decision (which made Penny wonder if her father had something to do with Phoebe losing her house) and made a trip all the way to Del Sol Valley to bring them pancakes.

While Sloane looked for a job and Phoebe waited for her acceptance letter, Penny had already found a job in a boring, ordinary office. It wasn't much, but it was a stable income nonetheless and she knew how to do her job despite not liking it.

She was still writing on the side and finally mustered the courage to publish one of her latest works under a pseudonym and while it didn't become an instant bestseller, at least it sold well and received mostly good reviews.

She also got a little friend that would not require as much care as a bigger animal, an hamster that she named Carly.

Sloane finally found a job as a gardener, however her job mostly consisted of taking care of some uncommon plants and breeding them, so she was always home taking care of the little garden she had. A bit disappointing for loner Penelope, but the house was as hers as it was her sister's and she had to adapt to their life together.

And speaking of life together, they risked to end it abruptly when Phoebe set the stove on fire while trying to cook. At long last, something she couldn't do!

Aside from this little incident, life went smoothly.

The girls "worked" as models for one of Penny's friends who was a freelance photographer, had fun (some more than others, looking at you Penny) and had hopes and dreams.

Our Penny dreamt of love, she dreamt of the man that would one day make her happy and wrote him poems as they came flowing.

She thought that this man would be someone close to her and the closest man to her was Uriel Villareal, so she decided to give it a try, but it did not go well.

She had no idea if he was completely incapable of making her feel the butterflies, if she had read too many novels or if they simply weren't compatible, but it clearly wasn't meant to be and everything he did made her cringe, she thought that anything she said to him was stupid and overall everything about their "relationship" was an endless avalanche of cringe.

So she gave up and broke it off for good, and wasn't very sad about it.

She wrote the last poems of her book with him in mind, however, and one of them won her a ticket to the Starlight Accolades, but she wasn't ready for her identity to be outed to the world yet and declined.

Oh, and also Phoebe got that acceptance letter shortly after and enrolled.

Life was amazing over the course of the following years. Phoebe was always studying or fixing stuff, Sloane existed without doing much of anything and Penny made life even more complicated for herself by starting a postcard collection after finding a random postcard in the hamster's cage. Truly a life to be lived.

Okay, in all seriousness they had the boring life of three poor college aged women. Penny got a couple raises, but not much else and money was quite tight.

The last few days before Phoebe submitted her thesis were hectic and Sloane did her best to make her girlfriend feel calmer. Penny made her part as well by cooking her food that she could binge eat while writing furiously.

Then came the day of her graduation, the happiest of her life, and Phoebe made sure to make it memorable for Sloane while Penny made sure not to look at her while she did: all those love declarations and kisses were embarrassing and made her tense.

The wedding took place roughly a year after and the two immediately looked for a donor to make their family bigger, which meant that they couldn't live at Penny's anymore.

Primrose and Haru generously offered to take them in and the couple moved out, finally leaving Penny to enjoy a solitary life that she was sure she would enjoy... Except she didn't.

Penelope quickly realized that she had gotten used to chatting and noises while she worked and didn't take her solitary life as well as she thought she would.

She spent most of her day at work, working her butt off for a boss that she disliked and a paycheck that was ittedly becoming big enough for her to have savings. She wasn't well off yet, but she was certainly in a much better spot than before.

When she finally saw Sloane and Phoebe's radiant faces as they looked at the bump that would become their daughter Brandy did she realize what she actually wanted.

She wanted a baby. While she had given up on love completely, Penelope still wanted a family and maybe the time was right, since she was now better off than before.

Plus she had heard that some distant relatives, Shari and Edith (her father's much younger cousins) had also had daughters (respectively named Justice and Mary Anne) and saw it as an occasion.

She talked this through with her grandmother Primrose, who encouraged her to follow her heart and told her that she would be a great mother.

So Penny decided to do it. She would get artificially inseminated.

Primrose ed away a few days after her insemination, and Haru followed her shortly after.

The pregnancy was immediately rough for Penelope, who took maternity leave almost immediately. She would spend her time taking care of the plants that Sloane had left behind, throwing up, writing and playing video games.

The only time she got out of her house was to go to some festival, but Sloane's waters broke and they were all forced to leave.

An ultrasound scan revealed that Penny was carrying fraternal twins, likely of opposite genders.

Writing was Penelope's saving grace during her pregnancy. She wrote what was possibly her best book yet during these times and despite not being able to remain seated in the kind of seat she used for her desk.

Her waters broke while she tried to license this one specific book and she immediately took herself to the nearest hospital. The birth was long and painful, but by midnight she had her babies in her arms, a boy and a girl.

She decided to name them Percy and Pearl. They looked to be both little clones of her, although Percy had a type of hair that was different from Penny's and Pearl's

It wasn't long before her house was filled with the noise of toddler babbling and the tapping of their shoes.

Her tiny man Percy was a silly little boy, always laughing and trying to make them all laugh. He was truly adorable to be around, although he could be very loud.

Pearl was a bit difficult. She hated being told what to do and would scream in your face if you even dared to ask her to do something. The only person that could "reason" with her (with reasoning being a big word, considering they couldn't speak any language aside toddler babble) was Percy.

Penny started to do yoga in her free time's free time, mainly to get away from her twins' constant screaming.

Thankfully not even their toddlerhood lasted too long. It seemed that time had been flowing faster since they had been born.

Percy turned out to be a little goofball -she expected it- while Pearl developed an active side that she didn't expect at all.

However, with the children no longer young enough to sleep together in their little bedroom, Penny had to resort to buying a new house, which basically left her pennyless but was a good occasion to take a family photo, like it was custom of the Berry Family.

Penny herself was becoming older and continued to work a boring, useless job that she hated, until a realization hit her in the head with the strength of a 500kg stone: why was she doing this to herself? Why was she continuing to torture herself like that when the few books she had published had granted her more money than she had gained working there?

In the heat of the moment, Penelope Berry called her boss to let him know that no, she would not be coming tomorrow. In fact, she would not come back at all. She was done.

And so began her career as an independent writer.

Now ready to be associated with the books she sold, Penny started publishing all of her unpublished work under her own pseudonym and with her own face on the back of the books, gaining more and more fame as she did so. People recognized her. She felt loved.

Accomplishments and money came flying in after she made these decisions. She was probably the most famous Berry who had ever lived up until then, even more famous than Phoebe -which made her smile- and of her great-grandfather Grayson, who had been an athlete.

She also received a strange fruit from a mail, one that she had seen once in her parents' backyard, and that sprouted seeds with a big monetary value.

All in all, they were doing amazingly.

Yoga, who had once been an escape for Penelope, had become a real hobby of hers since she left her job. It made her feel younger and contributed to keep her healthy and calm through the twins' teenage years.

The teens were stereotypical popular kids in middle school, but High School signed a turning point for both.

Percy became a sort of class clown, he was always making jokes, but he was generally a good kid and also got into cooking amd violin. Penelope, who didn't really like making food, let him experiment as much as he wanted and they usually ate the leftovers.

Pearl, on the other hand, was a rough one. She developed an attitude, made friends with some not so good kids and overall became a real pain for her mother.

The twins only had one friend in common, a boy named Ryan Layne, who they described very differently: Percy thought he was a good guy with an attitude, Pearl though he was a womanizer and the male equivalent of a bad bitch.

Great. Now who was Penny supposed to trust? The guy was often around, hanging out in their backyard or just using their pool and soon Percy started acting weird around him.

Penelope thought he was starting to dislike her or he was jealous that Pearl liked him? Maybe?

The reality couldn't be further from what she thought.

In reality, it was the opposite: Percy and Ryan felt an unstoppable attraction towards each other and Pearl didn't think he was right for her brother.

Percy had been aware of his bisexuality for a while now and it wasn't an issue for him, but Ryan had been taken aback from his feelings for another man, and to complicate matters more he had a girlfriend, Journee Sigworth.

Pearl, well aware of their escapades, didn't like Ryan because she thought that he would cheat and leave her brother heartbroken.

As for Percy, he mainly thought of Ryan as his friend with benefits.

Was he too young to have a friend with benefits at sixteen? Yeah, maybe, but who cared? Not him.

Exploring his sexuality with Ryan meant finding themselves in each other's arms in semi-public places and the fear of being seen made everything better.

While the twins dedicated themselves to their hobbies and tried out new ones, Penelope was still working on her old postcards collection: she made pen pals, talked with them and asked them to send her a postcard.

As it turned out, all of them basically knew each other and decided to send her a plaque to commemorate their friendship.

I swear this is a real thing in the game

Once the third Starlight Accolade nomination came Penelope decided that it was time to finally accept.

Studio PBP had undergone through a renovation and it was incredibly modern now and the food was amazing, so Penelope would've been happy just by spending a free night there, but she actually turned out to have won.

She felt like she was on the top of the world that very moment.

Then came the time for her children to leave the nest. Watching them blow their candles for the eighteenth time in their life, Penelope felt ready to see them make a life for themselves. Who knew what life had in store for them...