#not explicity but those are the vibes i'm going for

[askaniritual]

fanfiction wrapped 2023

here's my 2022 one

total fics: 7

total words: 42,965

total kudos: 889

most kudos/hits/bookmarks/chapters/words: how can there be more when this is done

my favorite: this was hard to pick! let's go with satisfied body (and a hungry soul)

director's notes/retrospectives on all my fics this year under the cut

completed works (in publication order)

satisfied body (and a hungry soul)

i really really love this fic and i honestly feel like it was a little slept on considering it has the lowest kudos of anything i published this year that wasn't a WIP but i get that stuff that's not explicitly shippy doesn't tend to do as well

words too small for any hope or promise

just a nice quick fic written at the absolute height of my trigun obsession. i'm very happy with this! i think it definitely captures the vibe i was going for. i tend to write fic for tiny or inactive fandoms so it was fun participating in such a large/active fandom

names of heat and names of light, names of collision in the dark

i actually wrote this one last year while i was watching tiger and bunny and completely forgot about it until i found it on my google drive this year! it's one of those ones that i've been kind of surprised how much positive attention it's gotten but i do think it's a fun little fic. it's basically just like a rewrite of the first season but like "what if they were fucking the entire time" which is maybe kind of a cop out premise but also the kind of fic that queerbait media like that begs you to write

how can there be more when this is done

probably my most ambitious fic ever conceptually! this was very fun to write and VERY fun to publish, the reader feedback i recieved on this was super rewarding. i still feel like i i kind of ran out of steam/didn't quite stick the landing with this, but that's always been sort of my weak spot when it comes to fic

the dreams we should be having

the fact that this is my only homestuck fic on the list given that it was the fandom that completely consumed the last 6 months of my year is wild lol. i do really like this fic and as i said in the authors note i see it more as an explication of a thesis than a full story in and of itself. that being said idk my personal theses about these characters are always changing so i think even if i rewrote it now it would be different

works in progress

there is very little left of me and it's never coming back

i swearrrr i'll come back to this eventually. i really really love the premise for this, i've just had a really remarkable string of brain worms this past year. but i always seem to come back to ricstar so i'm confident that this will eventually get its time to shine

just as good as anybody

my jean/emma fic!! and also my attempt to explain what the fuck was going on with jean during krakoa era. obviously this is unfinished but i am really excited about what i have written for chapter 2 and i hope i can get this up pretty quickly in the new year

[tired-fandom-ndn]

AU where Stranger!Danny comes back to creep on/kill Tim only to discover that, while he was "on holiday", Tim actually came out as a trans man and started transitioning and Danny ends up putting all his creeper energy into being as supportive as possible.

So basically trans Tim just has a creepy doll brother who kills transphobes for him.

[hange-zone]

Hello! I really like this song called Heather by Conan Gray. Can I please request an eremin fic based on it and with a happy ending? (I'm not great with angsts.😂)

They’re under the bleachers – far away from anyone else, close together. Eren’s hands are soft in his. He’s holding them gingerly, as if he’s afraid that his fingers would leave a mark on the back of Armin’s palms, something that told the whole world they’d touched. His breath brushes Armin’s cheek. Their faces are inches from each other and he can’t bear to look Eren in the eyes. Instead, his gaze flickers to his lips – there’s a sheen to them where he’d licked them nervously, pink tongue going round and round and there were little droplets of sweat above his upper lip, a tiny beaded mustache. 

A single moment of wanting seizes him and before the fear kicks in, Armin leans forward clumsily and presses his lips against the other boy, who responds with an equal and opposite reaction.

He was thinking about that now. That moment where time slowed and the world shrank to immediate sensations – the salty wetness of Eren’s mouth, the softness of it all, the expanding satisfaction neat and pert in his heart – and he smiled quietly to himself, remembering the six seconds where nothing mattered anymore.

But it turned out the kiss probably didn’t mean anything at all. Eren was still the same as ever, friendly, yes, but there was something distant about him. They passed in hallways and Armin expected a sort of shared understanding about what had transpired that afternoon between best friends – a nod, a touch, something, but Eren hadn’t mentioned it and he himself had been too scared to ask. So there wasn’t anything at all. He thought about ships in the night and wondered if this were what it meant.

And the way Eren had acted after made him feel sick. How in the few days after the encounter he’d suddenly attached himself to Historia, been extra chatty as she passed them in the same corridors. And the same softness had descended on his features and he’d looked lost in a daydream after her small figure. Armin hated it even more, hated himself, actually, because in that moment he hated her, hated how sweet and lovely and unassuming she was, how she would hide her smile in an admittedly cute giggle and Eren would smile back and he could only think that Eren didn’t care about him in that way, he probably liked Historia and she liked him back and - 

And he hated knowing that maybe it wouldn’t ever work out anyway, that maybe that one time where they got too close was a mistake and he shouldn’t have even entertained the thought in the first place. They were better off as friends. Good guy friends, who maybe kissed that one time but it was water under the bridge, off the duck’s back. 

All this he told Mikasa after school, while they sat on the sidewalk and ate their rapidly melting ice creams. It had been four days since the incident and its dizzying spiral of consequences.

“Mm,” she said, in between licks. “Yeah, I noticed too. He’s been a bit weird lately. But I suspect it’s because he actually likes you back. He just hasn’t found a way to say it properly. So he’s overcompensating.”

“That’s dumb,” Armin said, taking a long taste of his ice cream and feeling the cool sweetness spread across his tongue. He thought about the pinkness of Eren’s mouth and sighed. “Though I guess it makes sense, in a way. But it’s also so incredibly dumb.”

Mikasa shrugged. “I know.”

She paused, thinking. Then, slowly, pragmatically, “Do you want me to tell him? I mean - what you’re thinking. It’ll save you both a lot of - ”

“No,” Armin said quickly, horrified. He thought about Mikasa accosting Eren, asking him in her usual solemn way, to act rationally and explicably about the kiss. It seemed absurd and not to mention intrusive to bring her directly into that moment between them. And then he thought about confronting Eren himself, gesturing to the space between them, and asking, desperately, what about this? That also seemed too much all at once. The thought of exposing his raw jealousy to Eren seemed terribly mortifying as well - to say, also, that he hated the other girl who was so small and cute and perfect? Who Eren had given his brown sweater to when it was raining and she’d looked miserable and cold? He made a face. 

Historia hadn’t even done anything objectionable. In fact half the boys at school had been too glad to offer their varsity jackets when she’d forgotten her umbrella and had to run out in the rain. She’d merely taken Eren’s because he was the closest and besides, friends did that all the time right? He’d lent Eren his blue cardigan a few weeks ago and he hadn’t seen it since. He wondered briefly if he should ask Mikasa to get it back from him. She was the only one who could make sense - or be bothered to parse through - the mess that was Eren’s bedroom. He sighed, and swallowed the rest of his strawberry cone in a big, sad bite as he looked at his reflection in the shop window. Though they were both small and slight, yellow-haired with large cerulean eyes, he was certain that he would never be as pretty or attractive as Historia. They were going for the exact same place in Eren’s heart, and she had won on all counts, depsite not even trying. She probably didn’t even know they were competing in the first place. She was also probably a better, kinder person whose insides didn’t twist up when she saw Eren standing too close to someone else. And Eren liked her instead. And so he wouldn’t kiss him again. Ever. 

“He’ll come around eventually,” Mikasa said knowingly, comfortingly. She stood up, brushing the crumbs off her skirt, and helped Armin to his feet. “Even if he’s being silly about it right now and it takes him some time to sort himself out.”

“I hope so,” Armin said, and in a sudden gesture Mikasa had leaned over and given him a hug. 

“I know so,” she said firmly. He smiled into the warmth of her shoulder and mouthed thank you. There was a certain sort of solace in her certainty, and he felt a bit more of a spring in his step as he walked her to the bus stop and waved her off. He went home feeling considerably lighter and a tiny bit more hopeful than before. 

Mikasa - brilliant, lovely, perfect, sage and compassionate Mikasa - was right about Eren coming around. Or she might have knocked some sense into her brother, because at the end of the longest week of his life, in which Armin spent trying very hard not to think of the green-eyed boy, Mikasa had smiled an extra big smile at him as they said their goodbyes, and later at home he got a text which made his heart skip a beat. It was from Eren, and it simply read, Are you free? 

By the time his shaking hands had typed out, deleted, retyped and finally formulated a faux casual reply - yeah, what’s up -  the doorbell was ringing insistently and his grandfather was calling his name from downstairs and then shouting about a visitor. He heard those footsteps which could only be one person and by the time he scrambled out of his chair and over his bed and finally, finally, opened the bedroom door Eren was standing in front of it. 

In his hands he was holding Armin’s crumpled blue sweater - it’s just polyester - and he was saying, “Armin, I was being dumb, I’m so sorry -”

But already Armin had closed the gap between them and the knitted sweater had fallen forgotten to the floor because Eren was holding him again, his hands wrapped around the back of his head and their faces impossibly close. His breath was warm and his mouth was soft and he was leaning in, pressing the two of them together in another soft, sweet kiss. 

--

here you go anon & hope you like it! sorry it took a while but here’s me channeling my best high school AU vibes and secretly loving Mikasa, she’s the real MVP here :”) and here’s the ao3 crosspost if you’re so inclined

...you don’t know how much Conan Gray is a guilty pleasure of mine (and how many times I’ve played crush culture / maniac / overdrive / wish you were sober on repeat…)