#linearao3

freddy carter as francis of assisi in Poor Clare

How do you feel about collaborations?

Honestly, I've only published a collaborative fic once, but I'd love to do more in the future! I feel like two or more (compatible) writers can, inevitably, iterate faster and produce better quality work than a single person ever could on their own. Definitely open to collab more in the future, should those opportunities present themselves.

Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

Ooh wow. This is a tough one...

I love @thefudge's work, and have for literal years, now. At over 300 published works, her range and speed to publish is honestly astonishing. Anytime I find my interest piqued by a crackship in any piece of media I've just consumed, I know Dr.Fudge will already be there providing some good fucking FOOD. She's got a great way of capturing understated truths in a gorgeous, succinct way. Also, her single-handed invention of Hollywood Gothic as a twisted little subgenre of its own is awe-inspiring, really.

@your-girl-is-lovely has been my partner in truly absurd thoughtcrimes for QUITE some time now and she knows it. she's got the kind of storytelling skills that are beyond impressive -- reset's use of a non-linear narrative lives rent-free in my head to this DAY. it's rare to find someone whose work truly evolves in every single piece, and yet, she always manages it.

(also, i'm reminded that you wrote kaz/alina and wow, iconic)

Finally, I'm consistently amazed by @linearao3's work. It's gorgeous, it's horny, there's LAYERS to it, every damn time. Some people truly never miss and I'm convinced LinearA is one of those people. The attention to detail - costuming, language choices, what-have-you - is incredible.

If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

Inej and Kaz’s wedding from LinearA @linearao3 ‘s Child Ballad.

“The wedding, to Kaz, is a blur of sound and color, of going where Inej leads him and leading her where she whispers at him to lead. […] She looks beautiful, in the bright red, and in the firelight the pale gold veil could be white, like a page for her ink-black hair to write on.”

Also,

“He raises his glass, and drinks, and raises his glass, and drinks, and everyone cheers, and the fire crackles like a voice beside him, and he staggers to his feet, cane almost slipping in the long grass they’ve trampled down.

“To my brother Jordie,” he says. He can hear himself slurring. “To my brother Jordie. He ought to be here.

He pours the glass into the fire. Everyone is silent.”

- -

I’ve been working on the Inej drawing for a months and never finished. Did a reread and decided she needed a Kaz companion pic. *shoves it into the open and runs away*

thank you kindly for the ask!

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

"Fine," Wylan says, keeping his eyes open despite his instinct to close them, to look away from the predator in the room with him. "But try to see this, Mr. Brekker: the body of the son of a councilman washes up, pale and bloated, in the harbor. My father puts on a show. His beloved child, his only son, struck down by Barrel thugs." Wylan takes a deep breath, not daring to pause long enough to allow Brekker to speak or for himself to feel the way his stomach is turning in circles or his palms are sweating. "And maybe that's not enough for him to make any lasting changes to the Barrel. Not yet. But he starts a campaign, a morally righteous one. If his son, the poor simple Van Eck heir, could die to the violence of the city, whose children are safe? All over Ketterdam, law-abiding mothers will hold their children tighter and beg their husbands to listen. What has life in Ketterdam become, that a boy like the Van Eck kid could die in the streets?" Brekker shifts in his chair, either uncomfortable from sitting or from Wylan's words, and Wylan doesn't care which. He's built a head of steam now, because this is what his father will do. Wylan knows that. Never let a good tragedy go to waste. Poor, grieving Jan Van Eck and his poor, simple son. Deficient and so trusting. Killed in his prime. "My father will weep over my body in the Church of Barter, and establish a fund," Wylan barrels on, the scene sunlit and cold in his mind. "They'll pass a criminal justice reform law in my memory. Maybe they'll call it Wylan's Law, who knows? It will mean more stadwatch, surely. Better detectives. The fund will pay them so they're in my father's pocket and not yours. Suddenly, the people in the Zelver district will start calling for curfews for the Barrel, to keep the riff raff out of their neighborhood. Did you hear, the Van Eck boy was seen on Zelverstraat the night he died?" Wylan has no idea when he last went to the Zelver district, but it doesn't matter. What matters is rumor, insinuation. What matters is what they'll say he did. And his father will make sure everyone is saying what he wants. "And my father's power will grow. His rich friends will want to be seen as pious and good, so they'll support him even as his fist closes. And you, well. How many people saw me being led to your office tonight? When my face goes up on the posters advertising Wylan's Law — protecting your children from crime and immorality — how many people will recognize me as someone who was meeting with you days before my death? How will your bosses feel, when they put it together that you could have stopped this? How will your fellows feel when they're being run out of business because Kaz Brekker couldn't see the point of helping one boy?"

Rather a long snippet, but this is the scene in anticipation of light where Wylan convinces Kaz to help him. I love the thought process here, because I have listened to just SO MUCH Knowledge Fight that it's almost beat-for-beat what Alex Jones would accuse his imaginary enemies of doing. Use a tragedy to consolidate power. And Wylan is smart and observant, I have to believe that he knows the kind of man his father is. Especially in this world where he overheard the plan to kill him before it was set off. A Wylan who lurks outside of doors would have heard his father talking like this, and know how to emulate it.

I also really like to imagine what Kaz is thinking in this part - I imagine Kaz as someone who is looking for people who will give him a reason to help them. And he finds it in this monologue. He won't do charity and he doesn't need a demo man, but he can sell harboring this boy for this reason, and he's relieved to have a reason to do it.

And it is a moment that brings the truth of Wylan and Kaz being drift compatible (they are, this is my hill and I am dying here!) to the fore- they get each other, and in different circumstances they could easily be each other.

L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

Honestly, I do a lot of editing as I go. I'll reread before I start writing and adjust little bits here and there. So by the time I'm ready to post, I need a beta and then I ask text-to-speech to read it to me to catch typos and weird phrasing, and I'm pretty ready to go. Not an involved process, because I do most of it ahead of time.

Oooooohhhh, it has great potential but execution plays a HUGE ROLE @linearao3

Thank you for the ask!

11. Is there anything important in your fic you think readers have missed/overlooked?

If readers miss something, that’s on me for not writing it right. I think I was slightly too subtle about one specific thing in Adding On Weight- people seemed to think Inej just wanted to give Kaz gifts for funsies.

But she very specifically gives him things he asks for because she wants him to want things. His whole arc is about him learning that he’s allowed to want and reclaiming his agency. A book on card tricks, gloves, a painting, a million cups of coffee. If one were to go back and check, he either outright asks for all of those things or implies he wants them at some point, and she gets them for him.

Her desire to give him what he asks for takes us from "I don't get to want anything. Wanting is a poison. ... I don't know what it is you want from me, but I'd advise you to forget it before it gets you killed." In chapter 2 to Kaz telling her he wants to stay with her in chapter 14 and then actually enforcing a boundary for the first time.

in bloom— nirvana

bruises on the fruit

slowly but surely answering these 💞 in no real particular order

1. the girls by emma cline: this book broke my brain forever lol, in terms of how i try to convey scene and mood, my use of figurative language, the way i portray female friendship and love, i owe it a massive debt. i want to reread but i’m not eighteen anymore and i think some of the magic would be gone. did it stop me from joining a cult myself, no, but

2. the tsar of love and techno by anthony marra: there’s not a lot of fiction out there about post-soviet russia or much written in english that i’d say captures the russian ‘national spirit’ but this comes about as close as you can get. still get weepy rereading the story where sergei gets shot in the knee

3. city of thieves by david benioff: both cried reading this + had to put it down a couple of times, maybe because the siege of leningrad happened to my family, maybe because both the prose and the characterization is just that good. blew my mind to find out the author is the same guy who completely butchered s8 of game of thrones!!!

4. outlawed by anna north: both an amazing examination of gender and has one of the best passages i’ve ever read about trauma…… genuinely do not remember disagreeing w goodreads reviews as strenuously as i did after finishing this book 🙃 but it is solidly up there on my favorites shelf