numero uno martinelli glazer

luckily enough for me, even though this is set in 2012, it has a lot of stuff about the myspace era given well, the plot of the whole thing. so i would look at certain people from that era to see what they were up to

i, like many other gen z people, are OBSESSED with 2000s stuff, so it was really fun to see what it was like back then! i also found going on reddit, tumblr, etc. for older blogs from around that time really helped, because seeing old chats talking Like Dis xD really does help

looking at old memes is also really helpful!!! this reddit post from 2011 is something i reference occasionally because of how many comments there are and how it really describes the sense of humor and jokes from that era (even if it is reddit, which neither leo or ney were or will be on. it's still useful!)

i also found a lot of help in the scenemo community. i actually know this girl from church who is a pretty big scene creator on tiktok and have asked her a lot of stuff (and since she's chill about the fanfiction part, i can explicitly ask her what i want vs dancing around it and hoping someone accidentally answers what i want)

more specifically, the brazil part was something i struggled a lot with as someone who is not brazilian AT ALL. i wanted to keep the cultural accuracy as high as possible without diving too deep into stereotypes, and i did end up consulting a lot of brazilians for their feedback! which gets me into another point

ASK PEOPLE. the internet is a wild and wacky place but oddly enough asking strangers online for help is genuinely nice. i've asked r/millenials several questions (though. i pose my questions in a way thats more like "was thinking about this the other day and was wondering if yall could help me out" and less of a "im writing neymar and messi having slow hot drunk sex and want to keep it accurate please help me") and have gotten really helpful responses!! a dear family friend of mine is also the chillest millenial ever to exist probably and helps me out with some of the stuff i dont wanna ask (i love u bea!!!! shoutout to the goat)

i especially did a ton of research right before writing this fic. i planned out so much of this in a google doc (and yet there are plot holes. Sigh) and i would recommend it!!!

if you don't know where to start, just search up stuff from that era (and add "-ai" to every search!!!). for example "2012 facebook", "2010s trends", "2000s fashion", "2012 celebrities" so that you can get a feel for the era. once you've got a good idea of what you're looking for, you can go more specific and even write in the stuff that you now know! (and thankfully for me, neymar launched his official instagram in march 2012, so peering through his own account and the comment section was so helpful)

hope this helps!!!! kisses