#madsta

aaaaaah welcome!! Thank you for the asks :’)

1: favorite fic you wrote this year

Definitely Petunias and Black Lilies! It was the longest oneshot I’ve written all year, and aside from the somewhat weak ending, I’m pretty proud of it.

2: favorite line/scene you wrote this year

Hnnnnnngh this was a toughie but here

Aria meets back up with Xanxus after Don Vongola finishes introducing his new son. It’s a pity that they couldn’t nab the cake, but that’s alright. They’re only children. They can learn from this, and grow, and besides, Aria already has a contingency plan prepared, though Xanxus doesn’t know it. Plus, no one’s died. This is a children’s game, after all. It’s alright.

Xanxus doesn’t seem to think so, though. He looks angry and frustrated, teeth gritted and fists clenched as he walks over, and now Aria’s worried because again, it’s a game.

(Granted, so is Monopoly, but that’s another story she really doesn’t want to get into right now.)

”What’s wrong?” she asks immediately, catching his hands in hers and sending pulses of her Flames through them. She’s nowhere near the effectiveness of a Rain, but the atmosphere is languid and relaxed, and she’s keeping herself calm, so maybe the Sky’s harmony will work. But his Flames fight back, they don’t want to be tamed, and Aria is forced along for the ride and finds herself facing a tidal wave of self-loathing. Um. Wow.

“We didn’t get it,” he hisses, still furious, and now Aria knows it’s at himself. “I didn’t factor in the old man. And now we’ve lost our chance.” He looks on the very verge of berating himself, too; Aria recognizes the signs from one anxious Sun in her famiglia, and this is all wrong, so her hands move from his hands to his face and slap his cheeks lightly.

“Hey,” she says, slightly reprimanding, fixing him with a stern glare. “It’s okay. This isn’t a raid on an enemy family, and we aren’t grown-ups. It’s okay to mess up. This is a game, you know? A game.” He doesn’t look at all assured, but he does look very confused, and he opens his mouth again to speak but she squishes his cheeks and cuts him off. “Besides, this is a… a whatchamacallit… a learning experience. It’s harder for us to move around because we’re important, right? And there are people who know we are. We’re constricted because of our place in society.” A different kind of constriction than his previous place, she doesn’t say, but it looks like it’s dawning on him and he’s listening now, and putting together the puzzle. She’s trying to teach him, he knows now, she can see it in the way his eyes are no longer defensive, but still slightly hostile, and curious. Good, so he’s a quick study. This will make assimilating him into society much faster.

“You’re like Carlotta,” he notes, and she’s caught off guard partially because she wasn’t expecting him to say anything, partially because it takes her a beat to recognize that Carlotta is the name of Don Vongola’s wife. So Xanxus doesn’t call her mother, but also doesn’t call her an ‘old lady.’ Interesting. “You’re making me fit in. In a real sneaky, underhanded way.”

“I guess,” Aria allows. He’s not exactly wrong. “So what are you going to do about it?”

Xanxus stares at her for a moment before saying, “The old man is always talking about how it’s important to make allies.”

And just like that, they’re friends.

——It’s a passage from Petunias and Black Lilies.

9: longest wip of the year

Uh *sweats* Maybe my DGM Harry Potter AU?

11: fandom you enjoyed writing for the most this year

KHR!! I’ve barely posted anything for it, but I have a ton of unfinished oneshots piled up!!

23: fics you wanted to write but didn’t

*chuckles* Buddy my dude all the ideas I had that I liked were either drawn, had passages written to languish for eternity, or jotted down with some details in a document I keep for the exact purpose of keeping my ideas. Nothing is ever left to hang around my head.Unless you’re talking about those things in which case HOO BOY—

24: favorite fic you read this year

Probably Langlocked Lurid by @esquitor or Beginnings and Middles With No Ends In Sight by Ourliazo. I’m pretty sure both are on ao3 and ff.net. Special mentions go to @sawadoot’s domestic evil AU and the saga of @katya-khrabrets by @autumn-roses.