#anyway hiii i might not have my laptop back yet i'm still just out here making guys LMAO

[ruvviks]

– OC PICREW.

TAGGED BY: @strafethesesinners, @florbelles, @shellibisshe & @aartyom, thank you so much!! TAGGING: @reaperkiller, @steelport, @twinwitchbolt, @dickytwister, @arklay, @morvaris, @swordcoasts, @faarkas, @girlbosselrond, @devilbrakers, @liurnia, @calenhads, @cultistbase, @aelyosos, @katsigian, @adelaidedrubman, @henbased, @necro-hamster, @dirtyimbecile and YOU! – picrew ☆

ravi batra [tlou, he/him] // cato wu [cp2077, she/her] nephthys badran [pacrim, she/they] // ambrose hawthorne [cp2077, he/him] bourbon [bullet train, he/him] // roksana dobrynina [cp2077, she/her]

[mediawhorefics]

hiii marie i watched tsn last night and probably just spammed your notes with tsn rb's (sorry!) and i remembered you were writing the tsn fic! i'm super super excited to read it and i was wondering if there was a snippet you might be able to share with us? thank you <3

omg !! i just saw kjnvjkfds pls know you are welcome to spam my tsn tag whenever you want !!! i always feel like i'm annoying when i go on a tsn reblog spree or a tsn fic related reblog spree rip. (tho it's my blog i guess i can do whatever i want!) anyways i'm glad to know someone is enjoying that tag <333 (LOVED your 'i watch tsn like a queer drama' addition.... so true bestie)

and yes ofc i can share a snippet of the fic !!! no one has really asked before so thank you !! it's so nice to know some people are excited for it. idk how much you know about it? i've talked about it here and there, but basically, it's a you've got mail post canon au where mark gets signed up to a super exclusive mostly anonymous dating app for rich people against his will (dustin and his meddling, honestly!!) and he ends up falling head over heels in love with someone on there only to find out it was eduardo all along (she sings to the tune of agatha all along). anyways it's this very cheesy romcom trope-y story where mark basically has to realise that the only 2 times he's ever been in love were actually with the same person and if he wants to have peace of mind and true happiness he needs to earn eduardo's forgiveness and own up to his mistakes. it's gonna be so kitsch i can't wait to post it !!! it's this 100k monster rn and there's still a fair bit of plot to go on rip. i'm rambling now sorry, i've just been having soooo much fun with it and i don't get a lot of occasions to talk about it haha.

anyways here's a snippet that i thought wasn't tooo spoilery??? hope you'll like it !!! tw i gave them the world worst's usernames because i thought it would be funny af haha. apologies it's still unpolished and needs some edits but:

Mark never particularly liked the cold growing up, but there is always something eerie to him about December silently creeping in without much of a fuss in California. It always seems a little wrong to his New York State grown bones, his Harvard in winter thickened skin. Oh, the temperature drops, for sure, their equivalent of ‘cold’, but Mark recalls Massachusetts freezing winter days, him in his shorts in the snow and a disapproving Wardo staring after him, begging him to please put some clothes on, Mark’s skin prickling under the wind as he ignored him. Winter in Palo Alto is child’s play in comparison, which is the point of living there he supposes. It’s nice, but it’s strange. 

Feels off. 

It feels even more off when he knows he’s not gonna bother going back home for the break this year – like most years, let’s be honest – and get his fill of razor-sharp wind and bone-chilling cold. 

Winter always reminds him of the early days of Facebook; him glued to his laptop day and night in his freezing dorm room, pages and pages and pages of code that weren’t quite a website yet fighting to get out of his brain and onto the screen, and Dustin, Chris and Eduardo, a constant warm presence he was barely aware of hovering at his back. Especially Eduardo. 

And speaking of Eduardo, winter always reminds Mark of him too, despite his best efforts. 

Eduardo, who never liked the cold, not after spending his seminal years in Brazil, then Miami, who always struggled through the sunless, frozen, winter months he spent at Harvard, even though he never wanted to admit it. 

It reminds him of Eduardo’s shivering body that night he approached him with the idea for Facebook, cold cold cold cold, but listening to Mark about his idea outside in the January air all the same, the two of them alone on the cusp of something great. They could have been the only two people on Earth that night in the whipping wind. It’s what it felt like to Mark anyways, what it always felt like to Mark. Them against the world. Before The Phoenix, before Christy, before Sean… 

Wardo would have liked Palo Alto, Mark thinks that December morning as he makes his way to work and a slow melancholy takes hold of him, the way it always does what that kind of thoughts take root in his mind. 

He would have enjoyed the almost perpetual sunshine, the heat, the cool people he would have fit with so easily, the way Mark never could no matter how long he’s lived here… 

Mark sighs, taking a second in his assigned parking spot to compose himself. This stupid Gala he has to attend next week has been messing with his brain ever since Dustin discretely informed him that Eduardo Saverin has confirmed his presence to the event as well. 

And it’s fine. Eduardo can go wherever he likes. Especially when he’s invited. Mark isn’t his keeper or anything. And he’s proven many times in the past that they can be in the same room without yelling at each other. Well, most times anyways. 

But he’s always a little unsettled when he knows Wardo is stateside, the needle of his Eduardo inner compass all over the place, trying to reorient itself when it realizes that Far Far Away is no longer that far. Which is probably why he always feels like his heart is about to explode when they’re in the same room. 

It can’t be regrets, because Mark forbade himself from feeling those a long time ago. 

But it sure is something. 

He still feels a little itchy after a few minutes alone in his car so he gets his phone out, composing a quick text for eswag82. 

Winter always makes me melancholic, he types, something so incredibly soothing about the comfort of an ally, a friend, a confident, never further away than his pocket. Reflective. I start remembering things I never would normally think about. I don’t know if it’s seasonal depression or something, but… I’m always getting sad over nothing. Over stuff I should have been done with a long time ago. But I can’t help myself. It’s like December hits and suddenly… Do you know what I’m talking about? 

Mark sighs as he sends the text: time to face the music. 

The day passes quickly between meetings and coding and important phone calls… He doesn’t have the chance to check his personal texts until late in the afternoon but when he does, miraculously, warmth permeates through the cold of the approaching winter and spreads through him like a sip of burning hot coffee. 

I know exactly what you’re talking about, E writes. Everything slows down in winter, including us. We have the time to get reflective and melancholy. So many holidays in so many cultures too. A time of celebration, of togetherness. That can be challenging when you don’t feel particularly joyful. Or in my family’s case, together. Seeing what it should or could be highlights what it isn’t sometimes, yk? Or at least it’s like that for me.

I’m sorry, Mark writes back, feeling angry again on E’s behalf for that family that doesn’t make him feel welcome, doesn’t make him feel like he can be himself. 

It is what it is. I haven’t gone back home in a while now and this year won’t be any different. Sometimes taking care of yourself looks like neglecting others from an outsider’s perspective, but… I can’t worry about that. 

I’m not going home either this year. I’m busy, which is true, but it’s also… I don’t think I could stomach it. It’s been a while for me too and they’re great, but I still feel like I’m on the outside, yk? Like I’m looking at them through the windows and no matter how much I want to, I can’t go in. 

Mark swallows hard. He swallows back down more feelings of rejection and more fear that no matter what he does it’s never enough to belong. He swallows back down the fact that he created Facebook to be part of the club and he now fears he elevated himself so much higher that he can never fit in anymore. And he doesn’t even like people that much, he’s always said so, but the older he gets the more he feels they can be tedious and still part of his life anyway, that being alone at the top might not be the end goal he’s looking for anymore.