Fic commentary: For name's sake
Nov. 21st, 2025 08:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
isevsianneI guess I'll open by explaining the backstory of the Mat/Matej story: it came from some news story about post at an embassy that I no longer remember, but on the FFA Origfic discord we wound up talking about name confusions and it spun into idea of the names of the embassies being confused and the two employees who meet up also have the same name. To differentiate the two I came up with the idea one of them should be half-English and thus have a nickname, and to make sure they'd be distinct they'd basically have the opposite personalities and interests. One is sporty, social, slutty, and one is nerdy, introverted and a bit of a prude. Even their looks are opposites - Mat is tall, dark, blue-eyed whereas Matej is shorter, blond and brown-eyed.
It was an absolute nightmare having to think of ways to refer to them when they're two dumbasses pining over each other and don't even know each other's names. The set up of the coffee shop meetips is so convoluted it's a little wild, but it is what it is and I can't really change it to make more sense now, because it's just flatout bananas to begin with. Matej ended up thinking of Mat as the pretty respectful pseudonym Mr Slovenian Post whereas Mat cuts to the point with 'postie twink', which is also where the nickname postie comes from.
The absolute tragedy of Matej's dating life is a thing I might tweak a little if I was to rewrite the whole thing. If he's so pretty, how come he's not getting laid on the regular? I suspect the real reason would be that he's very critical of people he doesn't absolutely fall head over heels for. Really the only thing that saves Mat from this initial criticism is that they both go too stupid with lust/infatuation to note each other's flaws.
Looking back, absolutely unhinged that Mat is going around fucking others and trying to find the most Matej-like guy to fuck without actually putting more effort into getting with Matej. This is a theme I kind of did away in every AU version of the story--in those, Mat just goes for in a very obvious way. Here he's actually doing a lot of very little things, and Matej is being an idiot by not noticing it's flirting until it's very clearly flirting. Kind of makes me wonder why Mat is so subtle right now? Was he trying to maintain a modicum of professionalism or just thought Matej would catch on quicker?
On the other hand I recall thinking the meeting here is maybe only the fourth or so time they've met. Enough to arouse both of their fantasies, but not enough for Matej to figure out Mat is definitely, very very interested in him.
One of my favorite chats they have during the identity porn era! Why is Mat typing with one hand? I suspect he's just cooking with the other or something equally innocent, but Matej's mind probably goes places. Then there's the P&P reference where Mat is absolutely thinking about Matej's eyes, but Matej naturally takes Great Offence to the idea of preferring the television adaptation over the book, even if he's probably watched it thinking the exact same thing as Mat.
Absolutely love the Silvi/Gus backstory. In my head Gus is pretty attractive himself, just not as blatantly as Mat is, but she was very smart to switch targets and go with the guy who's not a fuckboy, is actually interested in what she says beyond getting her into bed, and is also open to learning about things she's interested in. I'd imagine they're about a year in at this point, which is why Gus is, for the lack of a better word, a complete simp for her. He's still very blokey in many respects, especially in the way he shows love to Mat by annihilating him verbally and calling him out on his shit, but for his girl he's ready to drop to his knees in public.
Polly is a funny character because she's kind of A Lot, but I absolutely don't want to mock a character who's got strong convictions for social justice causes, even if she's extremely A Lot about them. This meant I often couldn't think of ways to make her funny beyond just saying something about how something ordinary was bad in a morally judgmental way, so I don't really use her a lot in the future stories. She's still friends with Matej and I think her disastrous date with Mat makes her realize it's actually not worth trying to find dick on dating apps instead of finding someone she connects with in terms of values. So they're both learning! I should write a scene where she comes to a house party or something and gets into it with Mat, but more in a jokey way. Their contrast is very funny.
One of the best Mat-isms and one I think of every time I see a bonsai tree at a plant shop.
Their first date is such a mess! If you're ever on a first date and someone overshares, surely that's a huge red flag? Well, not to Matej, who just thinks it's beautiful how in touch with his emotions Mat is (spoiler: he isn't, he was just drunk).
When I tell you the pain of having to write the first sex scene with Mat being referred to as the pseudonym... Well, the things I do for identity porn. I tell you.
I assume this is an invoice that's overdue and Mat hasn't paid and now he's undone by it! I really wanted the reveal to be after they've slept together and after Matej has gotten a glimpse of the vulnerabilities of Mat so he doesn't come off as just a slick, handsome guy. So that when Matej inevitably folds and goes back to him, it's not just because he's extremely horny for Mat (which he is) or that he's a bit of an idiot about him (which he also is), but that Mat has shown enough of himself for Matej to understand him on a deeper level.
I used a lot more Slovak and Slovene in the first story before I decided to just stop relying on Google Translate in case it got things wrong. I did doublecheck a lot of these terms on other language websites, but despite having studied some Slovak in my day, I'm not really fluent so to minimize error I just made the decision to use less of it in general.
Is this secretly a love story between Darcy and Matej?
Mat is instantly down bad for Matej and doesn't even realize it. I love writing emotionally constipated characters and while Mat does great with the romantic seduction part, he's not really prepared to actually show his emotions in earnest, which is the biggest reason why they wind up in the ludicrous fwb situation. If he can earnestly date and commit to a guy while also pretending it's casual, it really serves him on both ends, he gets what he truly yearns whilst not having to face up to the terrifying consequence of settling down. He's extremely in the wrong for it! But it's fun to write.
Silvi would actually like to see it. Gus just wouldn't ever, and Mat would also never. Gus would mock his technique and his ego absolutely couldn't handle that.
The original idea was to have Mat grovel at the book club meeting and be more involved with that, but it would have meant me looking up books Matej would realistically read and just seemed like a lot of work. I would have also had to develop more tertiary characters to have in the book club and it seemed like a lot of work. I'm a proudly lazy researcher when it comes to stuff like this.
So casual. In light of what was revealed in the amnesia story, I suspect he also prepared for anal, but that's not mentioned because he's definitely thinking about jumping Mat, his very good friend, nope. This was inspired by a friend of mine in uni who said whenever she asks someone she's casually interested in to come watch a movie with her, they wind up having sex.
This is such a stupid lie (about Mat dating someone else), but I love that it hurts them both equally.
SO casual to tell your fwb they'd make a great husband. And also foreshadowing.
Soooooo casual to make your phone lockscreen a picture of your fwb holding your cat. I have a very clear image of this photo in my head. I like to imagine there were two shots, one of Matej looking at Darcy (the real love story!) and another where he looks straight at the camera (and Mat), and the latter is the one Mat uses as a lockscreen photo because they're his two favorites and Matej's eyes look extra deep and brown in the photo, which always makes Mat's stomach feel a bit funny. But the one where Matej is looking at Darcy is probably the one he posts on social media.
Mat trying to mansplain mommy blogs to two women is so funny. They absolutely bite his head off for it and I love it.
Sooooo casual to only date your fwb and make sure he only dates you and talk about marriage and buying a house together and live in each other's pockets and give him the best sex of his life. It's like Mat has two modes, Actual Husband or Nonchalant Fuckboy, and he's landed in the former mode with Matej but refusing to acknowledge it.
The central misunderstanding at the heart of this story is pretty much spelled out here. Because this is not a subtle story and one of the reasons I actually like writing namesake romcom is because it's so unsubtle.
Beka vs Mat is such a fun relationship to write. Mat's family is so caring and lovely and he's such a prat about them all the time. Permanently teenager.
Ahh it hurts so good. Mat is being such a prick here, but even as he's pretty happy to play boyfriend, he's still not that keen to share more of his own pain points. This is a problem.
So Casual to bring your fwb home to meet you family after your romantic holiday in a lakehouse where you had a super emotionally charged lovemaking session or two, only to have your fwb point out to your mum that you're not actually together and break his own heart in the process. I love this scene because I love pain.
Really just want to shake Mat by the shoulders sometimes. His "I can't be a good boyfriend" delusion is blatantly ridiculous when their fwb relationship is all about him being a good boyfriend, with only the problem that he's perhaps not being vulnerable enough with Matej. But that can be fixed!
Absolutely love how this is the stupidest most wrong thing he could have said in the moment. Christ almighty. But it's also exactly what he would say, because he's still not ready to open up even if to save his relationship with Matej.
Writing this scene triggered my secondhand embarrassment so much. But when you commit to a romcom premise you commit to a silly romcom climax as well, I suppose.
Reading back this story was simultaneously difficult and fun. My writing style is so sparse here and even though it's decently edited I could see all the little flaws in the writing. But I love these characters so much and writing them and their dynamic is such a blast. I think I'd handle some of the sex scenes differently now, but in 2022 I was still getting my feet wet when it came to writing smut, so if there's any awkwardness it's partly due to that.
Mr Slovenian Post was always late. Their designated time to meet had always been 9 o'clock in the morning on Fridays. They would exchange the mistaken post from the Slovak embassy and the Slovenian embassy and go on their merry ways from there.
It was an absolute nightmare having to think of ways to refer to them when they're two dumbasses pining over each other and don't even know each other's names. The set up of the coffee shop meetips is so convoluted it's a little wild, but it is what it is and I can't really change it to make more sense now, because it's just flatout bananas to begin with. Matej ended up thinking of Mat as the pretty respectful pseudonym Mr Slovenian Post whereas Mat cuts to the point with 'postie twink', which is also where the nickname postie comes from.
Since Jana, Matej had done his best to date and had occasionally succeeded, if success was defined with a drunken shag or a three month text conversation that always picked up when the other guy was horny, then died down again when he had something going on.
The absolute tragedy of Matej's dating life is a thing I might tweak a little if I was to rewrite the whole thing. If he's so pretty, how come he's not getting laid on the regular? I suspect the real reason would be that he's very critical of people he doesn't absolutely fall head over heels for. Really the only thing that saves Mat from this initial criticism is that they both go too stupid with lust/infatuation to note each other's flaws.
The guys he'd found on apps were all English, their accents bearing traces of Oxford or Liverpool or Bath. None of them had the cadence of the Slovak, his perfect English coupled with the slightly harsher consonants. None of them had that full mouth, or those unbearably adorable brown eyes.
Looking back, absolutely unhinged that Mat is going around fucking others and trying to find the most Matej-like guy to fuck without actually putting more effort into getting with Matej. This is a theme I kind of did away in every AU version of the story--in those, Mat just goes for in a very obvious way. Here he's actually doing a lot of very little things, and Matej is being an idiot by not noticing it's flirting until it's very clearly flirting. Kind of makes me wonder why Mat is so subtle right now? Was he trying to maintain a modicum of professionalism or just thought Matej would catch on quicker?
On the other hand I recall thinking the meeting here is maybe only the fourth or so time they've met. Enough to arouse both of their fantasies, but not enough for Matej to figure out Mat is definitely, very very interested in him.
Kovacs London: typin w one hand lol
Kovacs 1: Don't tell me more. Forwarded the email. Maybe give your own mother your correct email next time?
Kovacs London: tell ya the truth shed prob prefer you as her son
Kovacs 1: Well, as it stands I've already got a mother. Are you still typing with one hand?
Kovacs London: i have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes can bestow in the face of a pretty man
Kovacs 1: Pride and Prejudice?
Kovacs London: u think colin firth tops or not?
Kovacs 1: Not a fan of literature, I take it. Goodnight.
One of my favorite chats they have during the identity porn era! Why is Mat typing with one hand? I suspect he's just cooking with the other or something equally innocent, but Matej's mind probably goes places. Then there's the P&P reference where Mat is absolutely thinking about Matej's eyes, but Matej naturally takes Great Offence to the idea of preferring the television adaptation over the book, even if he's probably watched it thinking the exact same thing as Mat.
Gus had a girlfriend named Silvia, who had been initially interested in Mat, but had noticed how his eyes wandered from girl to boy to girl to boy in the pub they had met in. She had then decided to talk to Gus instead. Her loss. Mat was completely reformed from those days. Well. About as reformed as he could get while still being his charming self. He had manners now.
Absolutely love the Silvi/Gus backstory. In my head Gus is pretty attractive himself, just not as blatantly as Mat is, but she was very smart to switch targets and go with the guy who's not a fuckboy, is actually interested in what she says beyond getting her into bed, and is also open to learning about things she's interested in. I'd imagine they're about a year in at this point, which is why Gus is, for the lack of a better word, a complete simp for her. He's still very blokey in many respects, especially in the way he shows love to Mat by annihilating him verbally and calling him out on his shit, but for his girl he's ready to drop to his knees in public.
"I support a lot of independent porn," she said. "Used to know a Slovak named Matej."
Polly is a funny character because she's kind of A Lot, but I absolutely don't want to mock a character who's got strong convictions for social justice causes, even if she's extremely A Lot about them. This meant I often couldn't think of ways to make her funny beyond just saying something about how something ordinary was bad in a morally judgmental way, so I don't really use her a lot in the future stories. She's still friends with Matej and I think her disastrous date with Mat makes her realize it's actually not worth trying to find dick on dating apps instead of finding someone she connects with in terms of values. So they're both learning! I should write a scene where she comes to a house party or something and gets into it with Mat, but more in a jokey way. Their contrast is very funny.
Kovacs London: u like bonsai?
Kovacs 1: How dare you open that?
Kovacs London: just tiny trees innit
One of the best Mat-isms and one I think of every time I see a bonsai tree at a plant shop.
Matej really appreciated the candour. He had thought of Mr Post as nothing but a cool, collected and dreamy exterior, but he was so much more. He was a flawed, beautiful human being.
Their first date is such a mess! If you're ever on a first date and someone overshares, surely that's a huge red flag? Well, not to Matej, who just thinks it's beautiful how in touch with his emotions Mat is (spoiler: he isn't, he was just drunk).
When I tell you the pain of having to write the first sex scene with Mat being referred to as the pseudonym... Well, the things I do for identity porn. I tell you.
His eyes went over the name and address on the bill and as they did, a chill went through his entire body. No, it could not be.
Matej Kovac
I assume this is an invoice that's overdue and Mat hasn't paid and now he's undone by it! I really wanted the reveal to be after they've slept together and after Matej has gotten a glimpse of the vulnerabilities of Mat so he doesn't come off as just a slick, handsome guy. So that when Matej inevitably folds and goes back to him, it's not just because he's extremely horny for Mat (which he is) or that he's a bit of an idiot about him (which he also is), but that Mat has shown enough of himself for Matej to understand him on a deeper level.
Of course the best sex of his entire life had been with his worst enemy, an unrepentant kretén. He reached for the word in English. Asshole?
I used a lot more Slovak and Slovene in the first story before I decided to just stop relying on Google Translate in case it got things wrong. I did doublecheck a lot of these terms on other language websites, but despite having studied some Slovak in my day, I'm not really fluent so to minimize error I just made the decision to use less of it in general.
He took one last look at the adorable orange cat and left the flat.
Is this secretly a love story between Darcy and Matej?
"This is different," Mat said, reaching for a reason that wasn't mushy or embarrassing like that he couldn't say goodbye to those brown eyes or that he wanted that mouth on him again or that he had spilled his soul to his man and wanted more. "We have to work together, don't we?"
Mat is instantly down bad for Matej and doesn't even realize it. I love writing emotionally constipated characters and while Mat does great with the romantic seduction part, he's not really prepared to actually show his emotions in earnest, which is the biggest reason why they wind up in the ludicrous fwb situation. If he can earnestly date and commit to a guy while also pretending it's casual, it really serves him on both ends, he gets what he truly yearns whilst not having to face up to the terrifying consequence of settling down. He's extremely in the wrong for it! But it's fun to write.
Kovacs London: can friends kiss
Avgust Oblak: Silvi prob would not be thrilled but I've always been curious so c'mere big guy
Kovacs London: not us you twat
Kovacs London: im now friends with the slovak matej
Kovacs London: ..have u been curious?
Avgust Oblak: Absolutely fucking not. I know where that tongue has been. Disgusting.
Kovacs London: settle down ive got feelings too
Silvi would actually like to see it. Gus just wouldn't ever, and Mat would also never. Gus would mock his technique and his ego absolutely couldn't handle that.
Did he want to join? He hadn't read a single book in over a decade. He didn't really know what he would he talk about.
The original idea was to have Mat grovel at the book club meeting and be more involved with that, but it would have meant me looking up books Matej would realistically read and just seemed like a lot of work. I would have also had to develop more tertiary characters to have in the book club and it seemed like a lot of work. I'm a proudly lazy researcher when it comes to stuff like this.
To prepare for the evening, Matej vacuumed and tidied up his flat.
So casual. In light of what was revealed in the amnesia story, I suspect he also prepared for anal, but that's not mentioned because he's definitely thinking about jumping Mat, his very good friend, nope. This was inspired by a friend of mine in uni who said whenever she asks someone she's casually interested in to come watch a movie with her, they wind up having sex.
"Yeah, I am actually," Mat said, lying even though for some reason it really hurt his chest.
This is such a stupid lie (about Mat dating someone else), but I love that it hurts them both equally.
"You'd make a great husband for someone," Mat had told him once after they had cooked dinner at Matej's flat.
SO casual to tell your fwb they'd make a great husband. And also foreshadowing.
Rebeka Kovač: Then whos the guy holding Darcy on your social media?
Kovacs London: stalker.
Kovacs London: thats just a friend
Kovacs London: thats my neighbour
Kovacs London: someone i work with
Kovacs London: ok?
Soooooo casual to make your phone lockscreen a picture of your fwb holding your cat. I have a very clear image of this photo in my head. I like to imagine there were two shots, one of Matej looking at Darcy (the real love story!) and another where he looks straight at the camera (and Mat), and the latter is the one Mat uses as a lockscreen photo because they're his two favorites and Matej's eyes look extra deep and brown in the photo, which always makes Mat's stomach feel a bit funny. But the one where Matej is looking at Darcy is probably the one he posts on social media.
It turned out, more was not the merrier. Jana really hated his guts. She barely even looked at him after their initial introduction, which was essential to charming her, so he got nowhere with the endeavour. Instead she focused on chatting to Matej in rapid Slovak and eventually talking to Silvia about the mommy bloggers they both followed.
"Aren't all mommy blogs the same, just different flavours of annoying?" Mat asked them.
After a pair of withering looks, Silvia told him that actually, the influencer they were discussing was a mother and a feminist philosopher who deconstructed ideas of care work and maternal sacrifice on her Instagram. Great, how the fuck was he supposed to know that?
Mat trying to mansplain mommy blogs to two women is so funny. They absolutely bite his head off for it and I love it.
"As it happens, we stopped seeing one another." He paused. "Mutual decision."
"How convenient," she said sarcastically. "So that probably leaves you room to monopolise all of Matej's time while not actually dating him yourself?"
He felt like someone punched him in the abdomen. "That's not what I'm doing at all."
Sooooo casual to only date your fwb and make sure he only dates you and talk about marriage and buying a house together and live in each other's pockets and give him the best sex of his life. It's like Mat has two modes, Actual Husband or Nonchalant Fuckboy, and he's landed in the former mode with Matej but refusing to acknowledge it.
Jana was right. He wasn't the nicest guy. Matej deserved someone who was that, and so much more. In the meantime, they could just be friendly and fuck.
The central misunderstanding at the heart of this story is pretty much spelled out here. Because this is not a subtle story and one of the reasons I actually like writing namesake romcom is because it's so unsubtle.
Rebeka Kovač: Remember to call multiple plumbers and not just take the first offer! We need to be smart about this.
Kovacs London: who is this fucking we, with ur lazy arse back in oxford moving paper around a desk while im speaking to contractors in slovenian
Kovacs London: running around like a madman
Kovacs London: nobody in this family appreciates me
Rebeka Kovač: Boo hoo bitch.
Beka vs Mat is such a fun relationship to write. Mat's family is so caring and lovely and he's such a prat about them all the time. Permanently teenager.
“I don’t know. A loser, I guess,” Mat says, shrugging. To explain would be vulnerable. To explain would mean opening up.
He cannot.
“You weren’t a loser, Mat,” Matej starts, “you were just a kid, we’ve all bee-”
“No, stop,” Mat says, with emphasis. He pulls at Matej’s arms, bringing them closer. “We’re just friends, right? You don’t have to play therapist to me.”
Ahh it hurts so good. Mat is being such a prick here, but even as he's pretty happy to play boyfriend, he's still not that keen to share more of his own pain points. This is a problem.
"It's so lovely he has finally met someone like you," she added, a warm hand briefly on his shoulder.
"Oh, we aren't together," he said lightly, but the words landed heavy in the air between them.
So Casual to bring your fwb home to meet you family after your romantic holiday in a lakehouse where you had a super emotionally charged lovemaking session or two, only to have your fwb point out to your mum that you're not actually together and break his own heart in the process. I love this scene because I love pain.
“It’s just not … timely,” he finished, so stupid. “I don’t know. When I meet the right guy.”
But he had met the right guy.
“I understand completely,” Matej said.
Really just want to shake Mat by the shoulders sometimes. His "I can't be a good boyfriend" delusion is blatantly ridiculous when their fwb relationship is all about him being a good boyfriend, with only the problem that he's perhaps not being vulnerable enough with Matej. But that can be fixed!
"Darcy's going to miss you," Mat said softly.
Absolutely love how this is the stupidest most wrong thing he could have said in the moment. Christ almighty. But it's also exactly what he would say, because he's still not ready to open up even if to save his relationship with Matej.
Had it been a film, people might have burst into spontaneous applause. As it stood, Mat walked off the stage and everyone murmured amongst their own table how weird that had been.
Writing this scene triggered my secondhand embarrassment so much. But when you commit to a romcom premise you commit to a silly romcom climax as well, I suppose.
Reading back this story was simultaneously difficult and fun. My writing style is so sparse here and even though it's decently edited I could see all the little flaws in the writing. But I love these characters so much and writing them and their dynamic is such a blast. I think I'd handle some of the sex scenes differently now, but in 2022 I was still getting my feet wet when it came to writing smut, so if there's any awkwardness it's partly due to that.