#[gravelly voice] malaka

[nihilnovisubsole]

Writing ask 8,10,12 please and thank you :)

08: how slow is a slow burn?

as slow as you want it to be. if you want your couple to have mind-blowing chemistry for ages and never actually enter into a relationship, well, that's just fine with me.

10: top three favorite fic tropes.

see, this is tough. to borrow a sentiment from @memaidraws, i don't pursue - or write - stories on the basis of tropes these days. hear me out. i don't mean stories that don't have tropes. they all do. but it's not a deciding factor when it comes to a work. if i'm writing a couple that follows an enemies-to-lovers curve, i'm more into the particulars of their conflict than the fact that they're on that curve. many of my friends do like to write that way, and their enthusiasm is great. we're two different kinds of people who both know what we want.

broadly, i like characters who are hypercompetent and have seen too much, and who maybe aren't attracted to each other at first sight. i like mystery plots. i like thriller plots. i like stories that make excuses for their cast to get all dressed up for something. i have simple tastes.

12: if you write in more than one language, what’s the difference?

i'm not skilled enough in any of the languages i've studied to be able to write in them, unfortunately. that said, i do have characters who are bilingual, and that can give me a fun perspective on their dialogue. an introductory knowledge of russian helped me write rosie, because language learners tend to make mistakes based on the structure of their mother tongue. hercule, by contrast, is centuries old, so his english is perfect, but he spoke greek and french before that, along with god knows what else. "bad move" just doesn't sound as sinister as "mauvaise idée." even if you never use it, it makes you think about them differently.