okay so i read this last night and went straight through until 3 in the morning even though i had to get up early today, but i just couldn't stop. (and then i tried to leave you a very incomprehensible comment but lj was acting up)
BUT SERIOUSLY, THIS IS EVERYTHING I DIDN'T KNOW I WANTED. okay, things that absolutely stunned me/made me fall in love with this:
i feel like this is the first fic i've read where someone has explored what would happen if facebook never became what it is. and you handled it so brilliantly. i really feel like this is how movie!mark would react, but i'd never really considered it before so that felt like a revelation.
i loooooove the slow burn nature of this so much. how they're both very hesitant to admit their feelings, and then when they do, it's just the next logical step.
your eduardo is seriously one of my favorite characterizations of him that i've seen. especially the way you handled his family stuff, like... the thing about his family "never having asked" but the fact that he was prepared to answer their questions when it came to mark was so perfect i can't even. and i think the fact that you wrote them both in such a well developed way definitely added layers upon layers to their dynamic because that was pitch perfect too.
ALSO, ALTERNATING POINTS OF VIEW? w o w. usually i feel very uncertain about reading fics set up like that but you just knocked it out of the park and pulled it off flawlessly. it was such a treat to get to see into both their heads.
additionally i think that the premise was very interesting... it didn't feel like a typical trope at all to me--actually, thinking about it, i don't think that i've ever seen another "taxi cab driver au" or such so props to you for originality.
really, i feel like there's nothing i don't like about this fic. thank you so so much, this made me so happy i can't even tell you. <3
You have no idea how relieved I am that you liked it! I was unsure about the role reversal (well, this is pretty different from my usual angst so I was unsure about a lot of it) because it's diferent from how TSN fandom usually does AUs. And as far as I know it is the only fic going about it from a Facebook never happened perspective - there's one abandoned WIP on the kinkmeme, but since that was my prompt I don't count it - and I wanted to explore those possibilites. Well, and it gave me the opportunity to avoid direct comparisons with the big coffeshop-type AUs we have.
For the taxi driver thing, well, it just made sense? I wanted something believable, and so I tried to think of jobs Mark could have where the two of them would meet, repeatedly to establish a connection, and that would be a job, not a profession or a calling, but something Mark could realistically slip into without even meaning to when his dreams fell through. It also gave me the chance to add more past personal growth to Mark - we often write him as having grown after Lawyer Up, and I needed something else for Mark to have lived through disappointment and come out the other side wiser, but not more sociable.
And Eduardo is the opposite - he never lost anything, his life never went off the projected path, and so he never questioned himself. He never had sufficient reason to stand up to the expectations thrust upon him, so he didn't bother. At the same time though he's been doing this long enough for a quiet disconent of wanting more from life to come up and leave him open to the option of changing his priorities, should an opportunity come along.
I know what you mean about alternating POVs. I usually avout them because they feel disruptive of the narrative flow, and a bit like the writer just couldn't pull off sticking to one POV. I honestly couldn't figure out how to tell this story from only one side though, and when I hit the 10k I figured it was long enough to carry both POVs. ...I colour-coded them, to make sure both are equally represented and alternate properly and one doesn't end up looking like the afterthought of the other. Mark's POV was blue, Facebook blue.
Ah, I'm, just so, so happy right now! Thank you for this wonderful comment, I'm so glad you enjoyed the fic and I didn't disappoint you!
(I hear you about LJ acting up, posting the fic was somewhat of a hussle too.)
BUT SERIOUSLY, THIS IS EVERYTHING I DIDN'T KNOW I WANTED. okay, things that absolutely stunned me/made me fall in love with this:
i feel like this is the first fic i've read where someone has explored what would happen if facebook never became what it is. and you handled it so brilliantly. i really feel like this is how movie!mark would react, but i'd never really considered it before so that felt like a revelation.
i loooooove the slow burn nature of this so much. how they're both very hesitant to admit their feelings, and then when they do, it's just the next logical step.
your eduardo is seriously one of my favorite characterizations of him that i've seen. especially the way you handled his family stuff, like... the thing about his family "never having asked" but the fact that he was prepared to answer their questions when it came to mark was so perfect i can't even. and i think the fact that you wrote them both in such a well developed way definitely added layers upon layers to their dynamic because that was pitch perfect too.
ALSO, ALTERNATING POINTS OF VIEW? w o w. usually i feel very uncertain about reading fics set up like that but you just knocked it out of the park and pulled it off flawlessly. it was such a treat to get to see into both their heads.
additionally i think that the premise was very interesting... it didn't feel like a typical trope at all to me--actually, thinking about it, i don't think that i've ever seen another "taxi cab driver au" or such so props to you for originality.
really, i feel like there's nothing i don't like about this fic. thank you so so much, this made me so happy i can't even tell you. <3
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For the taxi driver thing, well, it just made sense? I wanted something believable, and so I tried to think of jobs Mark could have where the two of them would meet, repeatedly to establish a connection, and that would be a job, not a profession or a calling, but something Mark could realistically slip into without even meaning to when his dreams fell through. It also gave me the chance to add more past personal growth to Mark - we often write him as having grown after Lawyer Up, and I needed something else for Mark to have lived through disappointment and come out the other side wiser, but not more sociable.
And Eduardo is the opposite - he never lost anything, his life never went off the projected path, and so he never questioned himself. He never had sufficient reason to stand up to the expectations thrust upon him, so he didn't bother. At the same time though he's been doing this long enough for a quiet disconent of wanting more from life to come up and leave him open to the option of changing his priorities, should an opportunity come along.
I know what you mean about alternating POVs. I usually avout them because they feel disruptive of the narrative flow, and a bit like the writer just couldn't pull off sticking to one POV. I honestly couldn't figure out how to tell this story from only one side though, and when I hit the 10k I figured it was long enough to carry both POVs. ...I colour-coded them, to make sure both are equally represented and alternate properly and one doesn't end up looking like the afterthought of the other. Mark's POV was blue, Facebook blue.
Ah, I'm, just so, so happy right now! Thank you for this wonderful comment, I'm so glad you enjoyed the fic and I didn't disappoint you!
(I hear you about LJ acting up, posting the fic was somewhat of a hussle too.)
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