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Kid You'll Move Mountains: DVD commentary
I'd written the following shortly after writing Kid You'll Move Mountains at the end of 2015, and uncovered it again, as it's still private. But I think it's valuable and interesting to archive in public, so I'm copying it here. I'm also doubtful that I'll write a real DVD commentary for it, so we'll just consider this that. For now. Enjoy my insanity :)
KYMM, or death fic: reflection post written December 2, 2015, a day after finishing writing this fic
SO I AM FINALLY DONE THE MONSTER!!! at whatever the fuck time it was last night, one am or two am or something, on December 2nd, at 108.2k words, kymm that I have affectionately been calling "deathfic" for the past few weeks or so is finally finished.
Um. I actually finished it a bit earlier, but then my internet cut out for an hour and I was agonizing on how to fix it. I couldn't figure that out, so I whined on twitter, and then Sand told me to "handwrite that shit" and it was like, less than a thousand words left, and I literally haven't handwritten any part of it and figured I should change mediums at least once for the last scene, so I did handwrite that shit. I handwrote the coda, though it was super rough, and when my internet finally came back at like, 2:30am, I typed it all up, edited it to hell and back because my writing longhand is always really rough and bad, and compiled it in evernote with the rest of the fic.
THIS FIC HAS BEEN SUCH A WILD RIDE!! honestly I was like "ok it's time for this to be over and not think about it for a while" but after selling my soul to it for the past couple of weeks, it's still on my mind - thus, this entry, partially to get all of my finishing thoughts out of my head, and also because I do want to still think and talk about it until I've exhausted myself from it completely. it's been... something.
I started it on the 8th November, but that was also the same night where I regressed terribly in my mental health and didn't write for - what was it (I'm checking the nano site right now) - exactly seven days, actually. So I wrote 2k on that day, and then seven days later on the 15th, I was like, wow time to write the Widener AU, am I right? except I kept having trouble getting into the fic, like, dragging my mentality into it, so I just wrote large chunks nearly every day (I only skipped one day since then iirc, though the site will say three, since I kept updating past midnight haha) until it had pretty much consumed my entire brain.
Um. I AM REALLY PROUD OF IT not going to lie, even though a part of me feels like:
a) it doesn't have to be this long
b) it's badly paced
but... whatever. I don't really know how to fix the pacing thing since I exhausted it and I honestly just went by my outlines and scene ideas and used everything I had. And for the length thing... well... that spiraled out of control anyway and I don't want to think about cutting it down since I spent so long working on it, so whatever. on that. too.
On outlining! I actually had absolutely no idea where the fic was going when I first started it on the 8th; I'd been thinking for about a month now "well I should write a fic where Mark works at widener lib because I worked at a library so I know what that's like, plus college" and that was the only gist I had. later after writing that first scene I figured that yeah, he's trying to make money for thefacebook (and:
c) I put too much meta in about thefacebook and webdev, but whatever)
which means he doesn't know Eduardo yet. AND actually prior to writing the damn fic I was having issues knowing how Eduardo and Mark would meet in the first place - I considered having Eduardo as a coworker, or as a patron asking Mark for help; but I figured that the coworker one is boring and overused (and there's already a fic like that anyway) and the patron one is cliche and would get old quickly. So I decided - hey, headcounts, because when I did headcounts at my library I always noticed people and they would smile at me but never talk and it was a weird relationship I had with these random strangers. SO YEAH, that happened.
in the period where I didn't know the fic was going, I did this whole giant ass brainstorming session for two hours just thinking and basically anticipating the road the fic might go down. I had a thread on a private twitter mostly just bouncing off ideas (with myself) about the background of the fic, Mark's relationships and the procedure of working whilst working on thefacebook... naturally as someone who's worked I know there isn't a lot of time outside of work to do other stuff, especially if you're stacking nearly twenty hours a week. I mean, Mark still gets stuff done, but I'm sapping up the time he had in the movie by twenty hours every seven days, plus like actual physical exhaustion, and the time spent walking to/from work, etc, so I felt like the need for urgency plus how much later thefacebook actually gets finished in the fic is more reasonable when he has less time to work on it.
THERE WAS SOMETHING - oh! the Mark and Erica friendship :) I ADORE IT IN ANY FORM REALLY so having it in this fic was super fun; I love Erica and she is possibly the best character in this. I played with the idea of having her have something with Dustin or maybe Sean or Alice or Christy - I actually really really like the idea of Alice/Erica, I wanted to throw in a scene where they flirt with each other at the desk, but it would have to be when Mark's not around for Erica to scold, so I couldn't really... put that in... it totally happens in my head though.
Anyway, Erica was fun to have. I wanted to keep Mark as TSN Mark, flaws and all; but I also wanted Erica to be a good influence on him, and to tell him when he fucks up (esp wrt misogyny), and just generally when he's being an asshole. I think tsn!Mark liked Erica past than just her face because she seems like a cool and logical person ?? and so this is another life when they don't have the front of dating and can be honest with each other, and Erica can admit that despite Mark's shortcomings there's still something that she likes about him and is drawn to him, and Mark can cope with the fact that Erica will point out his flaws when he's being particularly asshole-ish, but from the goodness of her heart.
I built Mark up a lot in this fic. I didn't think I could do it, but it eventually just came - naturally to me, Mark's character. I generally really enjoy writing from both his and Eduardo's perspectives equally (which is a great thing about being in TSN haha.)
And so when I was outlining this fic, it was honestly piece by piece - I would sketch the more upcoming parts and leave the future to the wind. Upon starting it I had a vague idea of what would happen in like - the first half? And really not any idea what would happen in the second half, but figured that the more I wrote, the more I knew how to tie the ends together later. I scribbled it all in this orange notebook and literally stopped at summer break and figured that when I got there I could figure out where I wanted the fic to end. haha.
This was... actually all very surprising for me as for longer fics I usually have a stronger sense of how it's going to turn out. I pretty much went on a whim with everything and trusted myself lmao. I had bits and pieces of future scenes I wanted to write, and as I approached larger chunks of time, I would splash down ideas for scenes/ideas to fill the time, stay there until I moved on, and then figured out how the next time frame would go.
Re: Mark's work schedule HAHA I actually had all of his first fall semester and first spring semester's work schedule laid out. When it came to the next fall (2004) though I had no idea what I was doing and I was just like, screw it lol. I'll probably find inconsistencies when I beta and just change it then, but I'm not going to touch this for a while (even though I know I want to), and just let myself relax. but, uh, yeah, there's a Real Schedule up until like the middle of the second arc of the fic, and then I just kind of fudged it from there.
On content! especially the issue of homophobia I brought up really lightly and - I just realized I never mentioned Eduardo's parents' reactions. OOPS. I don't know if I should? I didn't want it to be a big deal.
But yeah, I'm all into fanon Eduardo's dad being an overbearing asshole and his mother being too soft but still loving, but personally that doesn't really feel like a healthy parentship and I like Eduardo having a bit of a healthier relationship with both of his parents, while still wanting their approval. They're probably not homophobic in this (I think) but Eduardo still wants his father's approval. I feel like I made him too (physically) short and charismatic in this lmao like a mini Sean Parker or something... he's still strict and overbearing but he's not mean in this, so to say? I really like hepaticas's Ricardo in "guess it's hard to fall" so I guess that's the kind of character I wanted him to be in this... I'll probably tweak it so it comes across better.
As for Eduardo's mother, the passive and gentle thing always felt weird to me, even though I know it happens and is realistic. but just as a personal preference (especially since I'm like really passionate about child/parent relationships) I wanted her to be... I guess, v loving of her family and things that are close to her, but also judgy of everything that isn't. I think she's supportive of Eduardo and everything he does but her penchant of fixing everything else out with a critical eye could also make Eduardo... I don't know. I don't think he wants her approval because he knows he'll always have it, but sometimes he's a little more than hesitant to introduce stuff to her. BUT I also might change that up and fall back into the mold lol so we'll see!!!!!
ON THE HOMOPHOBIA THING THOUGH. Yeah. There's a v undercurrent with it in this, with Chris not being out to Dustin and Mark, and also Eduardo's fear, and Mark's lack of pressuring Eduardo to say anything. as someone who' more or less never be out to their parents, it was just personally relieving to have Eduardo say it to Mark and not have Mark accuse him of being "ashamed" of their relationship or anything. especially since Mark is bi in this and had flings in boarding school but didn't tell his parents until Eduardo, I feel like it just resonates with the young LGBT mindset and idk. is realistic?
On Dustin and Chris and their whole development through this - which I honestly didn't expect so much of, but this is a friendship fic in disguise, so there you go - Chris was just an acquaintance who fit particularly well with Dustin and Mark, but not to the point where he was going to go around and out himself to random coworkers, in public. I mean I think Chris is v strong both emotionally and mentally, but not to the point where he's going to risk his skin for homophobia. No lgbtq person would do that imho.
But yeah I'm really glad how I went through with the Mark/Dustin/Chris friendship through this, even though I feel kind of bad for leaving Eduardo out so much HAHA. but they all approve of each other; I wanted Dustin and Chris to meet Eduardo pretty early on (is like 30k "early on"...) and start interlocking that friendship together.
AND THE MARK & ERICA & DUSTIN & CHRIS FRIENDSHIP which was nOT anticipated but really I should've, if Erica was going to help Mark out with front-end stuff and Dustin was going to help Mark with the coding and Chris was going to be PR stuff. they are basically the fab four 2.0 and I love them!! I had to thrown in a few more social justice comments about Erica being the only girl (haha) and also the thing with Mark hating rich people... because irl Mark was honestly like that, about ppl who're privileged, even though his dad's a dentist and he came from a pretty well-off family and I was like, squints. I had to take that irl component and put it in this fic, though I guess TSN!Mark had a bit of that too lol. YOU KNOW ME, social justice bullshit and all that.
what else what else!! I GUESS THE TITLE LMAO? I was rifling through ideas and I didn't want to use song lyrics - in all honesty I hate using song lyrics for titles omg (everything I make has to be ~original~ or at least more creative in some way; song lyrics aren't super creative HAHA.) I have this note of things to use as titles in Evernote though, and one of the bulletpoints was "Dr. Seuss quote." and since Mark works in a library I figured it was fitting, so I googled Dr. Seuss quotes; for a brief time I considered using "Today You Are You," but that was from a birthday book that doesn't really fit with this fic that much. And I really love "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" just in general so I looked up quotes from that and the... yeah, pretty much stuck out to me. PLUS the epigraphs I used really fit with the story?? so I was like, let's just OTPYG this thing UP. I did that all in like twenty minutes lmao
AH I FORGOT ANOTHER IMPORTANT ELEMENT! I actually made a playlist for this fic really back in the beginning when I was trying to get my mind to sink into it; it's here (it's just called the title of the fic.) I could talk about that I guess lmao \o/ I listened to make me think of and get into the emotions of the fic, which was super helpful for me when I didn't have motivation.
All the songs on it are from my iTunes library HAHA BTR's "Paralyzed" was surprising for me and I wasn't sure if it fit tonally, but eventually I decided to have it start off bubblegum pop and eventually go into more indie-alternative (in 13 songs lol) to, um. Depict how sudden the Mark/Eduardo relationship starts but eventually evolves into something more serious and mature?
So, "Paralyzed" is actually an Eduardo POV song in this HAHA though you don't really figure that out until the end of the fic, but, yeah. It's a very exciting meetcute song and I was like, well!!! this fic starts off exciting and meetcute-ish!!!!
And then after that is "I Really Like You" by Carly Rae (which I still love!!) and I wanted to just focus on the spontaneity and the feeling of real-but-not-real and sort of "what are we" of this fic, of how both Mark and Eduardo are really into each other and that's all that matters? And then with Timebomb which can read a little sad (though foreshadowing?? haha) how it just... doesn't feel like a longterm thing, at first.
Blah, blah - I picked Goodness Gracious mostly for the sound, though the lyrics actually do work really well with Mark, about how he realizes how big his affection for Eduardo spreads and how he wants to hang out with him for a long time and just be with him. Oh My Love was also partially for the sound, so I could start transitioning from pop to indie/alt, but it's an upbeat happy song about love, so it works!! I REALLY LIKE THAT SONG TOO, thanks for showing it to me Cathy lmao
Au Revoir Simone's "Stars" was actually something I randomly found in my library - I don't know how it got there, in all honesty? I was just clicking through tracks to find stuff and it just sounded really nice and cute and the lyrics are pretty meetcute-y "and since we met / I cannot forget / you are on my mind" though if I had to pick a song that felt out of place in this playlist it would be this song. BUT WHATEVER, I like it and I think it fits the fic haha. It's more romantic and serious-love than the first several, but I think that shows the maturity of their relationship.
And then there's Fallin For You which is a classic (and also tbh basically the moment Mark's like "I'm in love"); MOTHER MOTHER'S BRIGHT IDEA is possible the song for this fic, if I had to pick just one. That is the song that highlights what this fic is about!! It is very Mark, and it is very this fic, and I am happy to have had this song in my iTunes to find it and put it on this dumb playlist haha \o/ but yeah, Mark is a sap and so am I.
Jacob Whitesides's "Let's Be Birds" is also one of those more serious romantic songs (I mean, Bright Idea is too) as this is how this fic is transitioning. This is what Mark and Eduardo have become, at the core of this fic. And then there's BLG's old "Thunder" haha but I've always wanted to put that song on a Mark/Eduardo playlist (especially since EDUARDO); and then Howie Day's "Collide" and Hey Monday's "6 Months" are more slow and serious and basically are Mark and Eduardo (mostly Mark) realizing that oh shit this isn't just another relationship, this is love and this is looking to the future and seeing each other, even if everything else is fuzzy, because you want to be together for every step of the way.
AND SINCE I am just jumping topics all over this post, I will also talk about the porn. Because there is porn in this. Yep :B
I wanted to make them versatile in this - and they are! - and also admittedly I got bored during some of them, which is why a bunch are like really skimmed over and not really interesting LOL. Their first time (the one against the door) was actually the one I had most trouble with, partially because it was the first sex scene I wrote in this but mostly because I was having issues writing that day and it came out weird and not sexy at all. I'll probably put it as a blooper reel or something, but yeah. The next day I rewrote it so it's the way it is in the fic, which is tbh hotter than the first draft.
MY OTHER FAVORITE SEX SCENES were their first time doing penetrative sex, and also Eduardo's body worship of Mark's body. that was fun!! also the chicken blowjob (LMAO) but I didn't want to make this fic all about sex, but I also wanted to show the excitement I guess of having sex at college and having that transition to enjoying having sex with just someone you really love?? plus, uh. It's porn.
WRT working in the library - I actually wrote this thing yesterday in case circ jobs aren't obvious enough, but I'm taking it out (for now) since it makes the A/N longer and it's not v interesting:
I basically took everything I knew from working for three years in the library and put it in this fic. Ironically? Mark only works there from his freshman to junior year, and so did I! That was actually not intentional.
Carlton (the only significant OC in this) is based on my own boss, who, yeah, like I said, is soft-spoken and good-natured and always smells like smoke/beer lol. I didn't make Carlton as much of a beer (and bacon) enthusiast as my irl boss was, but I feel like both of them have good personalities to be the boss of college students. I don't have a physical image of him in my head - maybe I should do that - but he is the nephew of the president (because, idk. just because) and he's probably younger than my old boss but he's a good guy. he probably goes to bars on the weekends (like my boss - I ran into him coming out of a bar one time on a Sunday afternoon in broad daylight LOL) and knows he can't fit in with the kids so he just hangs out and helps them out.
ALSO since I am relating more things to my life in this fic - I didn't actually mean to do this, but I had a friend in school who would get idioms wrong all the time, and my other friend and I (we were all English majors) would tease her for it, so I kind of made Chris... that... yeah LOL
I don't really know much about C++ or binary or really anything having to do with programming; Erica is basically everything I know, i.e. frontend stuff, not backend stuff. I did my best but I'm probably gonna shoot this to a beta who can just correct the incorrect parts of this fic... or... something... it's 108k long... sighs. But yeah, don't know much about that; don't know much about the Crimson (I'm not even sure if they're allowed to stop randos on the street?), don't know much about the weather or business/economics, I do know a bit about math but not that much, and... I don't really know much about BU or Harvard at all.
THOUGH!! I DID. do a ridiculous amount of research. like prior to actually writing the damn fic I was having issues with knowing what irl Widener looked like, because I didn't want to base it on my old school's own library, since it's a real place. I looked up pictures and tried to conjure a mental image in my head for weeks; I took virtual tours and looked at floorplans and maps and things right outside Widener, pictures of the Yard, the distance from Kirkland/Eliot and so on, Dunster St, haha. I needed a full mental image of what it looked like so I could write about it, though I have a pretty good picture of my head in it, now. After I first looked up the Widener floorplan and tried to attribute it to other pictures I saw, I actually sketched out my own floorplan for it for my fic. I made up the circulation room, and also the desk (unless it really does exist irl), but the reading room does exist, the cafe used to exist until like '06, and the study alcoves also exist. I also pretty much looked up a bunch of restaurants around the area for Mark/Eduardo's dates and not-dates, though I didn't look much into the Red Line stuff and Erica commuting so much from BU to Harvard.
And still on the research front - the movie. THE MOVIE. I pretty much put in quotes every time I could see it fit (though I may have repeated some, so I'll have to check) because I am a LOSER who likes stuff like that. I know it probably feels cliche in some places, but also I feel like these characters are still the same characters as they are from the movie, so the things they said there are still things they'd say in my fic, even if the situation is different. I AM A LOSER BUT IT'S OKAY.
With regards to Sean, that was... more hectic LMAO I was really worried before (and still a bit now!) about writing his conversations with Mark and Eduardo, since I didn't want to gloss it over for expository reasons, but I've never been confident with writing Sean. I should probably work on that.
I did a little additional research on him (the comment about his being an autodidact is real) and also just watched the movie to grab quotes; filling in the space before and after the things he actually said in the movie was really fun though it probably sounds awkward lmao. BUT I just grabbed a bunch of the stuff he said from the movie for real. I think that's the only part I really watched the movie to get quotes word-for-word; I rewatched a bit of the beginning conversation so I could quote Erica's thing about prescription/OCD accurately, but otherwise everything else was from the top of my head lmao............... I am a nerd.
With Mark's other coworkers - Bob and Vikram were two of the guys who Mark talked to after the Bill Gates lecture in the movie; Stuart Singer (obviously), the guy who invited Mark to the party, was the third one. I wanted to throw Alice and Christy in because NEEDS MORE WOMEN!! and also I adore them. I really want Erica/Alice to be a thing and then Christy tags a long because Alice is her bff and then she and Mark send each other glares at each other for like a week before Mark offers her a sour patch kid and Christy grudgingly takes it and they begin to like each other and form a silent pact and laugh at horror movies or something.
Talking about the Bill Gates lecture though reminded me - well, first, that I looked up Harvard's 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 school calendar (REPEATEDLY) for dates of breaks and what days what dates fell on and that sort of thing. It was a complete surprise to me that the last day before their spring break in 2004 actually fell on Eduardo's birthday (the 19th); I knew that in writing that day of the scene, but it felt like a really good and convenient plot point for me HAHA. Thank you @ Harvard for having your old calendars up lmao. They also had old Crimson articles up so I really just quoted the irl article for Mark's one interview instead of watching the movie, and also the pacing of expansion so I could figure how fast/slow I wanted kymm!facebook to grow.
THE OTHER THIGn wrt the Bill Gates lecture is that - well, when I looked it up to make sure it was a real thing that happened and found the actual exact date for it (27 Feb 2004), I also found out what his lecture was about. And it really was a lecture about how Harvard kids should, even if they have a brilliant idea, stay in school. I don't know if irl Mark attended it or not though he probably did in all honesty, but that's some irl meta and irony right there?? It blew my mind, I was like, does Sorkin know? But Sorkin probably knows.
Mark and Dustin and Chris rooming together in junior year was something I didn't mean to have happen, but I was there and I was like, well, why not?? So it did and it worked out really well eventually. The chicken scene lmao I didn't actually mean to put the actual scene in there but I did and it was underwhelming and hilarious to write. I was actually wordsprinting w my friend in this (I basically wordsprinted 70% of this fic; the other 30% I wrote in Evernote) while I was writing it and we were talking about what was happening in our fics and I was like "yeah a forced cannibalism scene was coming up" and she was like, what. and then I quoted the movie to her because I'm a fucking loser and she was like, what.
Prior to writing the major conflict in the third arc of this story - I had the idea of Eduardo offering Mark $20k (as a testament to the 19k he put up irl/in the movie, except 19k is a weirdly specific number so I just bumped it up) but more as a smaller thing than it ended up being. It was actually REALLY HARD for me to reason why Mark shouldn't accept it, but then I was like, true love! so yeah
but anyway between all that I was trying to figure out where is this fic going and realizing how immature/naive/young they were in the beginning of the story and figuring out how to mature them. because that's pretty much how they were in the movie, too; we can see the difference in their maturities in the flashbacks vs deposition scenes. I knew that Mark was just a kid with an idea in the beginning of this fic, but I wanted to make him confident CEO Mark - not just because he's the owner of a billion dollar valuation, but because he learns from relationships, and figures out how to balance personal life and business life, can address his mistakes while also learning from them.
SO I ended up like spending one day (the one day where I actually didn't write any prose for this fic) brainstorming out all the meta of the fic and the character Mark might be after the fight, and what the fight would be about - that Eduardo was feeling left behind, not because of facebook but because of Mark, and that Mark was planning to pick everything up and move to California basically solidified his fear of that. and Mark loves Eduardo and wants to be with him and he separates Eduardo and facebook but he doesn't want to pick between the both of them because they're both equally important to him. SO I just meta'd the fuck out of that conflict before writing it and now it's just on a paper covered with my tears somewhere. Speaking of tears I nearly cried writing the make-up scene and Mark telling Eduardo basically that he wants to marry him, though not in those words.
(Also I totally forgot Mass was the first state to legalize gay marriage AND IN 2004 TOO which is both fitting and perfect for this story haha)
OH ALSO about summer!! I didn't actually mean for it to come out the way it was initially, but then I remembered that Eduardo still has his internship, in New York, and Mark is from Dobbs Ferry, which is literally a 30-minute drive away, so I was like ??? coincidence I think not. IT MADE THINGS NICE AND SAPPIER THOUGH this fic was like -20% anticipation and 150% me realizing and remembering things and the world being kind and coincidental and easy for me to write this thing.
I just realized that I don't even know where I stopped at the end of November LOL oh I think it was in the middle of the check fight scene... yeah... I wrote another 20k in two days lmfa o
also I wanted the epigraph at the top of arc 3 to scare people and make them think that this was going to end broken HA I'm terrible
back on the Sean Parker thing, I didn't want to make Chris Eduardo 2.0 during that dinner, though I think his ability to see through people's bullshit would have made him just as wary as Eduardo was. I wanted Erica to be interested but not take him seriously, because, seriously, men. And Dustin and Mark are both excitable creatures, so you know, balance. also the reason I divided the Sean Parker meetings into two was because I wanted the Sean/Eduardo conflict, but I also figured that during that one lunch wouldn't be enough for Sean to go on about how awesome Palo Alto is, so TWO MEETINGS IT WAS. I imagine after this fic when Eduardo goes out to California with him Sean is totally teasing him and not taking him seriously at first despite his being CFO, and Eduardo is salty and grudgingly working with him, but he eventually sees how important Sean is to facebook and Sean can recognize and respect Eduardo's businessman qualities and they first get along for the sake of Mark, before they discover that they can bond over. other things. LOL.
I didn't vignette this because like all my other longfic are basically vignettes so I made myself write as many transitions as possible (which is probs why the length is weird.) Though I did divide it into eight parts afterward for some semblance of division, esp since 108k in one sitting is ridiculous. I might divide it up a bit more; there are some good start/stopping places in it, anyway.
and I'm DONE WITH THIS REFLECTION POST. I'll probably have a real DVD commentary post later but this is everything I have at the end. I also took pictures of my irl notebooks with the outlines lmao I'll probably post them here later
last note: the title is probably more relevant about TSN/facebook stuff but whatever that is like the secondary plot here (and facebook basically broke Mark/Eduardo up in TSN and it almost did here too... I know, facebook, I know it's not your fault) and also even though this fic is about Mark/Eduardo, it's not all... I mean, it's Mark. and Mark is a kid in this. so whatever.
KYMM, or death fic: reflection post written December 2, 2015, a day after finishing writing this fic
SO I AM FINALLY DONE THE MONSTER!!! at whatever the fuck time it was last night, one am or two am or something, on December 2nd, at 108.2k words, kymm that I have affectionately been calling "deathfic" for the past few weeks or so is finally finished.
Um. I actually finished it a bit earlier, but then my internet cut out for an hour and I was agonizing on how to fix it. I couldn't figure that out, so I whined on twitter, and then Sand told me to "handwrite that shit" and it was like, less than a thousand words left, and I literally haven't handwritten any part of it and figured I should change mediums at least once for the last scene, so I did handwrite that shit. I handwrote the coda, though it was super rough, and when my internet finally came back at like, 2:30am, I typed it all up, edited it to hell and back because my writing longhand is always really rough and bad, and compiled it in evernote with the rest of the fic.
THIS FIC HAS BEEN SUCH A WILD RIDE!! honestly I was like "ok it's time for this to be over and not think about it for a while" but after selling my soul to it for the past couple of weeks, it's still on my mind - thus, this entry, partially to get all of my finishing thoughts out of my head, and also because I do want to still think and talk about it until I've exhausted myself from it completely. it's been... something.
I started it on the 8th November, but that was also the same night where I regressed terribly in my mental health and didn't write for - what was it (I'm checking the nano site right now) - exactly seven days, actually. So I wrote 2k on that day, and then seven days later on the 15th, I was like, wow time to write the Widener AU, am I right? except I kept having trouble getting into the fic, like, dragging my mentality into it, so I just wrote large chunks nearly every day (I only skipped one day since then iirc, though the site will say three, since I kept updating past midnight haha) until it had pretty much consumed my entire brain.
Um. I AM REALLY PROUD OF IT not going to lie, even though a part of me feels like:
a) it doesn't have to be this long
b) it's badly paced
but... whatever. I don't really know how to fix the pacing thing since I exhausted it and I honestly just went by my outlines and scene ideas and used everything I had. And for the length thing... well... that spiraled out of control anyway and I don't want to think about cutting it down since I spent so long working on it, so whatever. on that. too.
On outlining! I actually had absolutely no idea where the fic was going when I first started it on the 8th; I'd been thinking for about a month now "well I should write a fic where Mark works at widener lib because I worked at a library so I know what that's like, plus college" and that was the only gist I had. later after writing that first scene I figured that yeah, he's trying to make money for thefacebook (and:
c) I put too much meta in about thefacebook and webdev, but whatever)
which means he doesn't know Eduardo yet. AND actually prior to writing the damn fic I was having issues knowing how Eduardo and Mark would meet in the first place - I considered having Eduardo as a coworker, or as a patron asking Mark for help; but I figured that the coworker one is boring and overused (and there's already a fic like that anyway) and the patron one is cliche and would get old quickly. So I decided - hey, headcounts, because when I did headcounts at my library I always noticed people and they would smile at me but never talk and it was a weird relationship I had with these random strangers. SO YEAH, that happened.
in the period where I didn't know the fic was going, I did this whole giant ass brainstorming session for two hours just thinking and basically anticipating the road the fic might go down. I had a thread on a private twitter mostly just bouncing off ideas (with myself) about the background of the fic, Mark's relationships and the procedure of working whilst working on thefacebook... naturally as someone who's worked I know there isn't a lot of time outside of work to do other stuff, especially if you're stacking nearly twenty hours a week. I mean, Mark still gets stuff done, but I'm sapping up the time he had in the movie by twenty hours every seven days, plus like actual physical exhaustion, and the time spent walking to/from work, etc, so I felt like the need for urgency plus how much later thefacebook actually gets finished in the fic is more reasonable when he has less time to work on it.
THERE WAS SOMETHING - oh! the Mark and Erica friendship :) I ADORE IT IN ANY FORM REALLY so having it in this fic was super fun; I love Erica and she is possibly the best character in this. I played with the idea of having her have something with Dustin or maybe Sean or Alice or Christy - I actually really really like the idea of Alice/Erica, I wanted to throw in a scene where they flirt with each other at the desk, but it would have to be when Mark's not around for Erica to scold, so I couldn't really... put that in... it totally happens in my head though.
Anyway, Erica was fun to have. I wanted to keep Mark as TSN Mark, flaws and all; but I also wanted Erica to be a good influence on him, and to tell him when he fucks up (esp wrt misogyny), and just generally when he's being an asshole. I think tsn!Mark liked Erica past than just her face because she seems like a cool and logical person ?? and so this is another life when they don't have the front of dating and can be honest with each other, and Erica can admit that despite Mark's shortcomings there's still something that she likes about him and is drawn to him, and Mark can cope with the fact that Erica will point out his flaws when he's being particularly asshole-ish, but from the goodness of her heart.
I built Mark up a lot in this fic. I didn't think I could do it, but it eventually just came - naturally to me, Mark's character. I generally really enjoy writing from both his and Eduardo's perspectives equally (which is a great thing about being in TSN haha.)
And so when I was outlining this fic, it was honestly piece by piece - I would sketch the more upcoming parts and leave the future to the wind. Upon starting it I had a vague idea of what would happen in like - the first half? And really not any idea what would happen in the second half, but figured that the more I wrote, the more I knew how to tie the ends together later. I scribbled it all in this orange notebook and literally stopped at summer break and figured that when I got there I could figure out where I wanted the fic to end. haha.
This was... actually all very surprising for me as for longer fics I usually have a stronger sense of how it's going to turn out. I pretty much went on a whim with everything and trusted myself lmao. I had bits and pieces of future scenes I wanted to write, and as I approached larger chunks of time, I would splash down ideas for scenes/ideas to fill the time, stay there until I moved on, and then figured out how the next time frame would go.
Re: Mark's work schedule HAHA I actually had all of his first fall semester and first spring semester's work schedule laid out. When it came to the next fall (2004) though I had no idea what I was doing and I was just like, screw it lol. I'll probably find inconsistencies when I beta and just change it then, but I'm not going to touch this for a while (even though I know I want to), and just let myself relax. but, uh, yeah, there's a Real Schedule up until like the middle of the second arc of the fic, and then I just kind of fudged it from there.
On content! especially the issue of homophobia I brought up really lightly and - I just realized I never mentioned Eduardo's parents' reactions. OOPS. I don't know if I should? I didn't want it to be a big deal.
But yeah, I'm all into fanon Eduardo's dad being an overbearing asshole and his mother being too soft but still loving, but personally that doesn't really feel like a healthy parentship and I like Eduardo having a bit of a healthier relationship with both of his parents, while still wanting their approval. They're probably not homophobic in this (I think) but Eduardo still wants his father's approval. I feel like I made him too (physically) short and charismatic in this lmao like a mini Sean Parker or something... he's still strict and overbearing but he's not mean in this, so to say? I really like hepaticas's Ricardo in "guess it's hard to fall" so I guess that's the kind of character I wanted him to be in this... I'll probably tweak it so it comes across better.
As for Eduardo's mother, the passive and gentle thing always felt weird to me, even though I know it happens and is realistic. but just as a personal preference (especially since I'm like really passionate about child/parent relationships) I wanted her to be... I guess, v loving of her family and things that are close to her, but also judgy of everything that isn't. I think she's supportive of Eduardo and everything he does but her penchant of fixing everything else out with a critical eye could also make Eduardo... I don't know. I don't think he wants her approval because he knows he'll always have it, but sometimes he's a little more than hesitant to introduce stuff to her. BUT I also might change that up and fall back into the mold lol so we'll see!!!!!
ON THE HOMOPHOBIA THING THOUGH. Yeah. There's a v undercurrent with it in this, with Chris not being out to Dustin and Mark, and also Eduardo's fear, and Mark's lack of pressuring Eduardo to say anything. as someone who' more or less never be out to their parents, it was just personally relieving to have Eduardo say it to Mark and not have Mark accuse him of being "ashamed" of their relationship or anything. especially since Mark is bi in this and had flings in boarding school but didn't tell his parents until Eduardo, I feel like it just resonates with the young LGBT mindset and idk. is realistic?
On Dustin and Chris and their whole development through this - which I honestly didn't expect so much of, but this is a friendship fic in disguise, so there you go - Chris was just an acquaintance who fit particularly well with Dustin and Mark, but not to the point where he was going to go around and out himself to random coworkers, in public. I mean I think Chris is v strong both emotionally and mentally, but not to the point where he's going to risk his skin for homophobia. No lgbtq person would do that imho.
But yeah I'm really glad how I went through with the Mark/Dustin/Chris friendship through this, even though I feel kind of bad for leaving Eduardo out so much HAHA. but they all approve of each other; I wanted Dustin and Chris to meet Eduardo pretty early on (is like 30k "early on"...) and start interlocking that friendship together.
AND THE MARK & ERICA & DUSTIN & CHRIS FRIENDSHIP which was nOT anticipated but really I should've, if Erica was going to help Mark out with front-end stuff and Dustin was going to help Mark with the coding and Chris was going to be PR stuff. they are basically the fab four 2.0 and I love them!! I had to thrown in a few more social justice comments about Erica being the only girl (haha) and also the thing with Mark hating rich people... because irl Mark was honestly like that, about ppl who're privileged, even though his dad's a dentist and he came from a pretty well-off family and I was like, squints. I had to take that irl component and put it in this fic, though I guess TSN!Mark had a bit of that too lol. YOU KNOW ME, social justice bullshit and all that.
what else what else!! I GUESS THE TITLE LMAO? I was rifling through ideas and I didn't want to use song lyrics - in all honesty I hate using song lyrics for titles omg (everything I make has to be ~original~ or at least more creative in some way; song lyrics aren't super creative HAHA.) I have this note of things to use as titles in Evernote though, and one of the bulletpoints was "Dr. Seuss quote." and since Mark works in a library I figured it was fitting, so I googled Dr. Seuss quotes; for a brief time I considered using "Today You Are You," but that was from a birthday book that doesn't really fit with this fic that much. And I really love "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" just in general so I looked up quotes from that and the... yeah, pretty much stuck out to me. PLUS the epigraphs I used really fit with the story?? so I was like, let's just OTPYG this thing UP. I did that all in like twenty minutes lmao
AH I FORGOT ANOTHER IMPORTANT ELEMENT! I actually made a playlist for this fic really back in the beginning when I was trying to get my mind to sink into it; it's here (it's just called the title of the fic.) I could talk about that I guess lmao \o/ I listened to make me think of and get into the emotions of the fic, which was super helpful for me when I didn't have motivation.
All the songs on it are from my iTunes library HAHA BTR's "Paralyzed" was surprising for me and I wasn't sure if it fit tonally, but eventually I decided to have it start off bubblegum pop and eventually go into more indie-alternative (in 13 songs lol) to, um. Depict how sudden the Mark/Eduardo relationship starts but eventually evolves into something more serious and mature?
So, "Paralyzed" is actually an Eduardo POV song in this HAHA though you don't really figure that out until the end of the fic, but, yeah. It's a very exciting meetcute song and I was like, well!!! this fic starts off exciting and meetcute-ish!!!!
And then after that is "I Really Like You" by Carly Rae (which I still love!!) and I wanted to just focus on the spontaneity and the feeling of real-but-not-real and sort of "what are we" of this fic, of how both Mark and Eduardo are really into each other and that's all that matters? And then with Timebomb which can read a little sad (though foreshadowing?? haha) how it just... doesn't feel like a longterm thing, at first.
Blah, blah - I picked Goodness Gracious mostly for the sound, though the lyrics actually do work really well with Mark, about how he realizes how big his affection for Eduardo spreads and how he wants to hang out with him for a long time and just be with him. Oh My Love was also partially for the sound, so I could start transitioning from pop to indie/alt, but it's an upbeat happy song about love, so it works!! I REALLY LIKE THAT SONG TOO, thanks for showing it to me Cathy lmao
Au Revoir Simone's "Stars" was actually something I randomly found in my library - I don't know how it got there, in all honesty? I was just clicking through tracks to find stuff and it just sounded really nice and cute and the lyrics are pretty meetcute-y "and since we met / I cannot forget / you are on my mind" though if I had to pick a song that felt out of place in this playlist it would be this song. BUT WHATEVER, I like it and I think it fits the fic haha. It's more romantic and serious-love than the first several, but I think that shows the maturity of their relationship.
And then there's Fallin For You which is a classic (and also tbh basically the moment Mark's like "I'm in love"); MOTHER MOTHER'S BRIGHT IDEA is possible the song for this fic, if I had to pick just one. That is the song that highlights what this fic is about!! It is very Mark, and it is very this fic, and I am happy to have had this song in my iTunes to find it and put it on this dumb playlist haha \o/ but yeah, Mark is a sap and so am I.
Jacob Whitesides's "Let's Be Birds" is also one of those more serious romantic songs (I mean, Bright Idea is too) as this is how this fic is transitioning. This is what Mark and Eduardo have become, at the core of this fic. And then there's BLG's old "Thunder" haha but I've always wanted to put that song on a Mark/Eduardo playlist (especially since EDUARDO); and then Howie Day's "Collide" and Hey Monday's "6 Months" are more slow and serious and basically are Mark and Eduardo (mostly Mark) realizing that oh shit this isn't just another relationship, this is love and this is looking to the future and seeing each other, even if everything else is fuzzy, because you want to be together for every step of the way.
AND SINCE I am just jumping topics all over this post, I will also talk about the porn. Because there is porn in this. Yep :B
I wanted to make them versatile in this - and they are! - and also admittedly I got bored during some of them, which is why a bunch are like really skimmed over and not really interesting LOL. Their first time (the one against the door) was actually the one I had most trouble with, partially because it was the first sex scene I wrote in this but mostly because I was having issues writing that day and it came out weird and not sexy at all. I'll probably put it as a blooper reel or something, but yeah. The next day I rewrote it so it's the way it is in the fic, which is tbh hotter than the first draft.
MY OTHER FAVORITE SEX SCENES were their first time doing penetrative sex, and also Eduardo's body worship of Mark's body. that was fun!! also the chicken blowjob (LMAO) but I didn't want to make this fic all about sex, but I also wanted to show the excitement I guess of having sex at college and having that transition to enjoying having sex with just someone you really love?? plus, uh. It's porn.
WRT working in the library - I actually wrote this thing yesterday in case circ jobs aren't obvious enough, but I'm taking it out (for now) since it makes the A/N longer and it's not v interesting:
Dummies' guide to working in library circulation, as brought to you by me:
- Music library: is still part of the main library physically, there are stickers on the books and you have to pay attention to them and a pop up comes up when you scan them and you have to make sure you don't print out a slip because you can just shelve it with other music library books
- Desensitizing books: clunking them on a sensor, making sure they don't beep when people are holding them while going through the sensors
- ILL: Inter Library Loan, basically a US-wide network of university libraries where students/patrons/etc. can recall books via the internet from other university libraries, especially if your own school doesn't have the book in their library
- Patron: cardholder/equivalent of a customer
- Recall: putting a book on hold
- Reserve books/shelf: where class instructors can keep books on hold for their classes
- Preservation (checking in): checking in books that were sent to preservation, meaning that they're usually old, gross, and broken, or, less often, have the wrong call number on the sticker and were sent to be fixed. Checking them in = removing the preservation status, changing their location status back to circulation, and making sure the call numbers match.
- Good book/bad book: Sorting through checked-in preservation books combined with new books (for some goddamn reason). Also checking call numbers. Still.
- Shelf reading: Making sure that items (books, DVDs) are placed in chronological order
Everything else is otherwise self-explanatory in the fic!
I basically took everything I knew from working for three years in the library and put it in this fic. Ironically? Mark only works there from his freshman to junior year, and so did I! That was actually not intentional.
Carlton (the only significant OC in this) is based on my own boss, who, yeah, like I said, is soft-spoken and good-natured and always smells like smoke/beer lol. I didn't make Carlton as much of a beer (and bacon) enthusiast as my irl boss was, but I feel like both of them have good personalities to be the boss of college students. I don't have a physical image of him in my head - maybe I should do that - but he is the nephew of the president (because, idk. just because) and he's probably younger than my old boss but he's a good guy. he probably goes to bars on the weekends (like my boss - I ran into him coming out of a bar one time on a Sunday afternoon in broad daylight LOL) and knows he can't fit in with the kids so he just hangs out and helps them out.
ALSO since I am relating more things to my life in this fic - I didn't actually mean to do this, but I had a friend in school who would get idioms wrong all the time, and my other friend and I (we were all English majors) would tease her for it, so I kind of made Chris... that... yeah LOL
I don't really know much about C++ or binary or really anything having to do with programming; Erica is basically everything I know, i.e. frontend stuff, not backend stuff. I did my best but I'm probably gonna shoot this to a beta who can just correct the incorrect parts of this fic... or... something... it's 108k long... sighs. But yeah, don't know much about that; don't know much about the Crimson (I'm not even sure if they're allowed to stop randos on the street?), don't know much about the weather or business/economics, I do know a bit about math but not that much, and... I don't really know much about BU or Harvard at all.
THOUGH!! I DID. do a ridiculous amount of research. like prior to actually writing the damn fic I was having issues with knowing what irl Widener looked like, because I didn't want to base it on my old school's own library, since it's a real place. I looked up pictures and tried to conjure a mental image in my head for weeks; I took virtual tours and looked at floorplans and maps and things right outside Widener, pictures of the Yard, the distance from Kirkland/Eliot and so on, Dunster St, haha. I needed a full mental image of what it looked like so I could write about it, though I have a pretty good picture of my head in it, now. After I first looked up the Widener floorplan and tried to attribute it to other pictures I saw, I actually sketched out my own floorplan for it for my fic. I made up the circulation room, and also the desk (unless it really does exist irl), but the reading room does exist, the cafe used to exist until like '06, and the study alcoves also exist. I also pretty much looked up a bunch of restaurants around the area for Mark/Eduardo's dates and not-dates, though I didn't look much into the Red Line stuff and Erica commuting so much from BU to Harvard.
And still on the research front - the movie. THE MOVIE. I pretty much put in quotes every time I could see it fit (though I may have repeated some, so I'll have to check) because I am a LOSER who likes stuff like that. I know it probably feels cliche in some places, but also I feel like these characters are still the same characters as they are from the movie, so the things they said there are still things they'd say in my fic, even if the situation is different. I AM A LOSER BUT IT'S OKAY.
With regards to Sean, that was... more hectic LMAO I was really worried before (and still a bit now!) about writing his conversations with Mark and Eduardo, since I didn't want to gloss it over for expository reasons, but I've never been confident with writing Sean. I should probably work on that.
I did a little additional research on him (the comment about his being an autodidact is real) and also just watched the movie to grab quotes; filling in the space before and after the things he actually said in the movie was really fun though it probably sounds awkward lmao. BUT I just grabbed a bunch of the stuff he said from the movie for real. I think that's the only part I really watched the movie to get quotes word-for-word; I rewatched a bit of the beginning conversation so I could quote Erica's thing about prescription/OCD accurately, but otherwise everything else was from the top of my head lmao............... I am a nerd.
With Mark's other coworkers - Bob and Vikram were two of the guys who Mark talked to after the Bill Gates lecture in the movie; Stuart Singer (obviously), the guy who invited Mark to the party, was the third one. I wanted to throw Alice and Christy in because NEEDS MORE WOMEN!! and also I adore them. I really want Erica/Alice to be a thing and then Christy tags a long because Alice is her bff and then she and Mark send each other glares at each other for like a week before Mark offers her a sour patch kid and Christy grudgingly takes it and they begin to like each other and form a silent pact and laugh at horror movies or something.
Talking about the Bill Gates lecture though reminded me - well, first, that I looked up Harvard's 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 school calendar (REPEATEDLY) for dates of breaks and what days what dates fell on and that sort of thing. It was a complete surprise to me that the last day before their spring break in 2004 actually fell on Eduardo's birthday (the 19th); I knew that in writing that day of the scene, but it felt like a really good and convenient plot point for me HAHA. Thank you @ Harvard for having your old calendars up lmao. They also had old Crimson articles up so I really just quoted the irl article for Mark's one interview instead of watching the movie, and also the pacing of expansion so I could figure how fast/slow I wanted kymm!facebook to grow.
THE OTHER THIGn wrt the Bill Gates lecture is that - well, when I looked it up to make sure it was a real thing that happened and found the actual exact date for it (27 Feb 2004), I also found out what his lecture was about. And it really was a lecture about how Harvard kids should, even if they have a brilliant idea, stay in school. I don't know if irl Mark attended it or not though he probably did in all honesty, but that's some irl meta and irony right there?? It blew my mind, I was like, does Sorkin know? But Sorkin probably knows.
Mark and Dustin and Chris rooming together in junior year was something I didn't mean to have happen, but I was there and I was like, well, why not?? So it did and it worked out really well eventually. The chicken scene lmao I didn't actually mean to put the actual scene in there but I did and it was underwhelming and hilarious to write. I was actually wordsprinting w my friend in this (I basically wordsprinted 70% of this fic; the other 30% I wrote in Evernote) while I was writing it and we were talking about what was happening in our fics and I was like "yeah a forced cannibalism scene was coming up" and she was like, what. and then I quoted the movie to her because I'm a fucking loser and she was like, what.
Prior to writing the major conflict in the third arc of this story - I had the idea of Eduardo offering Mark $20k (as a testament to the 19k he put up irl/in the movie, except 19k is a weirdly specific number so I just bumped it up) but more as a smaller thing than it ended up being. It was actually REALLY HARD for me to reason why Mark shouldn't accept it, but then I was like, true love! so yeah
but anyway between all that I was trying to figure out where is this fic going and realizing how immature/naive/young they were in the beginning of the story and figuring out how to mature them. because that's pretty much how they were in the movie, too; we can see the difference in their maturities in the flashbacks vs deposition scenes. I knew that Mark was just a kid with an idea in the beginning of this fic, but I wanted to make him confident CEO Mark - not just because he's the owner of a billion dollar valuation, but because he learns from relationships, and figures out how to balance personal life and business life, can address his mistakes while also learning from them.
SO I ended up like spending one day (the one day where I actually didn't write any prose for this fic) brainstorming out all the meta of the fic and the character Mark might be after the fight, and what the fight would be about - that Eduardo was feeling left behind, not because of facebook but because of Mark, and that Mark was planning to pick everything up and move to California basically solidified his fear of that. and Mark loves Eduardo and wants to be with him and he separates Eduardo and facebook but he doesn't want to pick between the both of them because they're both equally important to him. SO I just meta'd the fuck out of that conflict before writing it and now it's just on a paper covered with my tears somewhere. Speaking of tears I nearly cried writing the make-up scene and Mark telling Eduardo basically that he wants to marry him, though not in those words.
(Also I totally forgot Mass was the first state to legalize gay marriage AND IN 2004 TOO which is both fitting and perfect for this story haha)
OH ALSO about summer!! I didn't actually mean for it to come out the way it was initially, but then I remembered that Eduardo still has his internship, in New York, and Mark is from Dobbs Ferry, which is literally a 30-minute drive away, so I was like ??? coincidence I think not. IT MADE THINGS NICE AND SAPPIER THOUGH this fic was like -20% anticipation and 150% me realizing and remembering things and the world being kind and coincidental and easy for me to write this thing.
I just realized that I don't even know where I stopped at the end of November LOL oh I think it was in the middle of the check fight scene... yeah... I wrote another 20k in two days lmfa o
also I wanted the epigraph at the top of arc 3 to scare people and make them think that this was going to end broken HA I'm terrible
back on the Sean Parker thing, I didn't want to make Chris Eduardo 2.0 during that dinner, though I think his ability to see through people's bullshit would have made him just as wary as Eduardo was. I wanted Erica to be interested but not take him seriously, because, seriously, men. And Dustin and Mark are both excitable creatures, so you know, balance. also the reason I divided the Sean Parker meetings into two was because I wanted the Sean/Eduardo conflict, but I also figured that during that one lunch wouldn't be enough for Sean to go on about how awesome Palo Alto is, so TWO MEETINGS IT WAS. I imagine after this fic when Eduardo goes out to California with him Sean is totally teasing him and not taking him seriously at first despite his being CFO, and Eduardo is salty and grudgingly working with him, but he eventually sees how important Sean is to facebook and Sean can recognize and respect Eduardo's businessman qualities and they first get along for the sake of Mark, before they discover that they can bond over. other things. LOL.
I didn't vignette this because like all my other longfic are basically vignettes so I made myself write as many transitions as possible (which is probs why the length is weird.) Though I did divide it into eight parts afterward for some semblance of division, esp since 108k in one sitting is ridiculous. I might divide it up a bit more; there are some good start/stopping places in it, anyway.
and I'm DONE WITH THIS REFLECTION POST. I'll probably have a real DVD commentary post later but this is everything I have at the end. I also took pictures of my irl notebooks with the outlines lmao I'll probably post them here later
last note: the title is probably more relevant about TSN/facebook stuff but whatever that is like the secondary plot here (and facebook basically broke Mark/Eduardo up in TSN and it almost did here too... I know, facebook, I know it's not your fault) and also even though this fic is about Mark/Eduardo, it's not all... I mean, it's Mark. and Mark is a kid in this. so whatever.