#ano replies

Thank you so much with your patience in my replying to this ask, @atsuyuri-sama I have been thinking about this ask since you sent it and getting super hyped when i finally had a week where i had enough brain energy to give it the answer you deserve.

First off: !!!! FOUR read-throughs??!? It's mind boggling to think someone enjoyed Lingua Franca so much to reread it three times. You honor me.

On to the question: Since you mentioned really loving the AU and the fact that it's only one fic right now, I think it'd be fun to share what I'm envisioning for the entire series, structure wise.

Lingua Franca (the series) will have 4 parts, one of which is obviously Lingua Franca (the fic) The rest are as follows:

Prima Lingua - A prequel/companion story to Lingua Franca from the perspective of Nicolo. The second chapter of which will have one of my biggest writing experiments to date and I'm very very excited to see how it lands with people.

Nolexi - What happens after Lingua Franca? A very awkward dinner, first off. The title/theme of the work comes from Rudy Francisco's I'll Fly Away which. I highly recommend, especially to any poetry lovers out there OR people who love linguistics.

Code Switch - This is my anthology of pieces set into the Lingua Franca universe that don't fit in well with the main fics but I still feel are important supplementary snapshots into the characters and the events. Here are some of my favorite snapshots I'm going to be exploring:

Andrew is just shy of nine years the first time he accompanies his father on a sea voyage. As with most boys his age, he is brave and curious in equal measure, and can't help but flounce his father's strict orders to stay away from the strange metal box speaking in zeneize. Three decades later, Andrew is cornered in an alleyway on his walk home from the docks. These experiences are related.

Quynh has learned after several lifetimes that while she'll do it for her heart, Andromache has no love and no patience for the task of braiding hair. Luckily, Quynh has an alternative for when she wants to do something complicated with her hair. If it happens to interrupt his reading, that's his problem. (She knows Booker secretly loves helping her with her hair anyway.)

The first thing Copley does, once he's triple checked he's lost all traces of Merrick surveillance, is break into Booker's apartment.

I've got parts and pieces of all three of these fics written but I'm not sure when exactly I'll actually get them published or if I'll wait until i have them all completely written before posting but I hope whenever the time is right and I get the rest of the story shared with you all, it brings you the same satisfaction as Lingua Franca did :)

I wish we could have met the survivors in a DLC

i LIVE for the pair of clippers i have…amazing to have control over your own hair!! the sides are easier than the back! the key is to not be frightened of messing up (bc honestly so very few people notice/comment even when i’ve had, uh, questionable lengths on the back of my head lol). START WITH A LENGTH SETTING HIGHTER THAN WHAT YOU WANT AT FIRST

Anon! Thank you for the wonderful comment!!! <3 And yeah, oh Joe, I adore him so much and put him through so much in return. I don’t think I’ll address it in the actual fic but I’m mentally picturing Andy and Quynh helping for a few decades and eventually sitting down with Joe once everyone on the original ship had died and going “This was a long shot a decade ago and now is pretty much impossible, we could do more to help in other places.” And Joe just goes, “Ok. Go help where you’re needed. I’m supposed to be here until I find Nico.”

I’ll get more into the faith aspect of Joe’s characterization and sense of conviction later in the fic but I really believe that had the roles been switched like they are in this AU Joe would have never stopped looking and part of that comes with having a secure sense of faith that Andromache (who I love and is wonderful, but is also as atheist as they come) does not have. Opinions on organized religion and discussions of faith aside, there is something so incredibly powerful about the way the human psyche can withstand impossible odds when supported by the certainty that there is something greater than you out there and this entity is in the long run setting the world up for what’s best for you, even if you cannot see it. Which is then really interesting to explore in the context of people who can live through impossible situations that would otherwise break someone or kill them incredibly quickly? Which is just talking about broad strokes religion, not even getting into the nuances of Islam and the overarching themes of intentionality and trust (not the right word but as close as I’m getting) within Islamic practices and how that could impact someone’s outlook when faced with very very terrible situations.

what

I have a razor comb and i love it for keeping things short. The hairdressers around here don't know how to put short hair on a woman without it being a frumpy perm. I can do better myself.

I am still pretty new to my undercut but VERY MUCH SAME. (Scared at what I might do with clippers though…)