#and it is not actually that I think Jiang Cheng is pulling any kind of A grade in parenting

[rhysiana]

Because I saw a post about how modern AU WWX would probably actually be as tall as LWJ, if not taller, since so many modern AUs don't feature him suffering as much childhood privation as canon, which reminded me of another thought I have had, about how an early life period of interrupted growth can in fact just delay a person's growth spurts rather than eliminating them. Thus: WWX who gets confusingly taller after graduating from college.

3 People Wei Ying Talked to About Suddenly Getting Taller and 1 Person Who Definitely Noticed On His Own

[Now also on AO3]

Wen Ning

Wei Ying looked down at his feet, perplexed. "Wen Ning?" he yelled down the hall. "Did something weird happen to the washing machine that you didn't tell me about?"

Wen Ning popped his head around the door to Wei Ying's room. "No? I don't think so."

"Then why are all my pants suddenly too short?" A new thought occurred to him and he looked up, now delighted. "Wen Ning! Are you actually pulling a prank on me? I know I don't have all that many clothes, but still, this must have taken so much work! I respect the dedication." He held out a fist.

Wen Ning just blinked at him. "I think... maybe you got taller, actually?"

Wei Ying scoffed. "I'm way too old for a growth spurt. Seriously, did Nie Huaisang put you up to this?"

Wen Ning gave up arguing and simply produced a tape measure instead.

~*~

Wen Qing

Wei Ying burst into Wen Qing's lab, which he might have felt worse about if she hadn't been babysitting an experiment while no one else was around. He still received an impressive glare, but he didn't have time to worry about that right now.

"Wen Qing, I need you to test me for every weird kind of chemical exposure you can think of!"

She blinked at him, looking remarkably like her brother for a moment. "Wei Ying, you're in computer science. Exactly when do you come in contact with chemicals?"

"Uh. A leak on the science campus somewhere?"

"What is actually wrong with you? Tell me in the next," she glanced at the clock, "three minutes or leave."

"I apparently grew another inch in the last month without noticing. That can't be natural. I'm 23."

She stared at him for a moment, frowned, and then her expression cleared. "You said once that you had a bad time when you were younger. Stopped growing for a while."

"Why do you even remember that?" Wei Ying asked with an uncomfortable laugh, looking away. He must have been drunk; he didn't usually bring that time of his life up in any detail. It just made people sad.

Wen Qing turned away briskly, ignoring his minor display of emotion, and checked some readouts he was pretty sure hadn't actually changed in any way yet. "Well, that's why. Your growth spurts just got delayed, not erased. It's normal. I'll send you some references tomorrow."

He swept her up in a relieved hug. "Thank you, Qing-jie. Even if this does mean I'm not developing some weird superpower mutation."

She poked him cruelly in the ribs to get him to let go. "Go away, you're distracting me."

~*~

Jiang Cheng

"You what?!" Jiang Cheng demanded at full volume. It'd been a while since they'd managed to get together in person--Wei Ying had nearly forgotten how red with frustration Jiang Cheng could get.

Wei Ying grinned and bounced a little on his toes to really rub it in. "Grew another inch."

"No! This isn't allowed! The universe can't do this to me!"

"What's the problem, little brother?" Wei Ying edged closer so he could prop his elbow on Jiang Cheng's shoulder and really lean on him. "I think I should get jiejie to measure me again and mark it on the door frame. Really make it official."

"Don't you dare!"

"Why don't I ask her now, so she'll be all ready when we see her next weekend?" Wei Ying fished out his phone and then held it up over his head, laughing, as Jiang Cheng lunged for it.

Jiang Cheng's eyes narrowed. "An inch isn't really that much," he growled, and hooked Wei Ying's leg in a takedown they'd both learned when they were 11.

Wei Ying tossed his phone out of wrestling range and turned his full attention to finding a hold that would make Jiang Cheng tap out.

~*~

Lan Zhan

"Wei Ying."

Most people claimed Lan Zhan's voice (and face) didn't have any expression, but Wei Ying could clearly hear the shock underlying his name.

"Lan Zhan!" he returned brightly. "You're back! Did you have a good trip? You've been gone for months and months!"

Wei Ying was used to the intensity of Lan Zhan's regard under normal circumstances--one of the many things he loved about being friends with him--but he didn't think he was imagining that it was particularly intense today.

"It was as I texted you," Lan Zhan said shortly, and then, surprisingly, continued before Wei Ying could get a teasing reply in. "Wei Ying... did you get taller?"

"Oh, that!" Wei Ying felt himself start to blush, for some reason. "Yeah, I did. It was so weird at first, but Qing-jie assures me it's normal, and I've almost gotten used to it now. It was just an inch but I had to go buy all new... pants..." He trailed off as Lan Zhan pushed into his personal space much closer than he ever had without Wei Ying initiating it first, as far as Wei Ying could recall. "Hi?"

They were nearly chest to chest now, and he could see it when Lan Zhan actually had to tilt his chin up just a bit to meet Wei Ying's eyes.

"Hello," Lan Zhan said, grave and low and very, very focused.

Wei Ying wasn't entirely sure what was happening right now, but he was pretty sure he was into it.

[lansplaining]

@iri-vail i hope you don’t mind me pulling out these tags from this post: 

#mdzs meta#meta#why i think wwx has to be a little mean to jc in fic to be characterized correctly#like that whole monologue 'ohhh jc is just too weaaak~'#i know thats borne mainly of his own insecurities/attempt to distract himself from his tough decisions#but maaan it goes on for so long its so mean spirited it turns around into funny

bc damn you know

i’ve really never thought about it, but you are so so right. fic is so fixated on jiang cheng being mean to wei wuxian, with good and obvious reason, but wei wuxian is really quite unkind to him in the second life as well? he truly refuses to actually listen to what he’s saying at almost any point, and as you point out, his fundamental perspective on who jiang cheng is and what he’s capable of is not kind! this is not to say i don’t think he loves jiang cheng, but especially by the time you get to the temple confrontation, there is a fundamental dismissiveness and lack of willingness to hear or see him that is self-protective, but also shades into meanness for sure 

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

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1. Can you help me find a fic? It was a poly ship, with I think Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng, Jin Zixuan, and Wei Wuxian. Possibly also Nie Huaisang? LWJ, JC, JZX (+maybe NHS) were divine beasts and WWX was another mythical beast but he hid it. I don’t think they were all romantically involved: WWX was the pivot between the others. It was abo or a fated-soulmate au. I think I might be getting two fics confused though, because I remember there is one where WWX, LWJ, JC, and JZX form some kind of soul bond and they fight through the Sunshot Campaign together and they can read each other’s thoughts and bring each other back to life, but this one is not that one! Can’t remember that one’s name either and it isn’t in my bookmarks. TT

FOUND? I’m pretty sure the one with the fourway soulbond is Quartet series by WithBroomBefore (T, 69k, Platonic Soulbond, Hurt/comfort, Canon   Divergence, No golden core transfer, JC&JZX stay in Xuanwu cave, Fix-it, Temporary character death)

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2. Hello! I am looking for a fic where  Wei Wuxian is a hairstylist. Rich!Lan Wangji keeps coming back even though originally he would only make an appointment with the owner. Likes his scalp massage. I can't remember if the owner is Huaisang or Wen Ning. Thank you for your help! @toopunkrockforshul

FOUND! Delivered in Silence by DeviyudeThoolika (E, 17k, WangXian, Modern AU, Slow Burn, hairstylist!WWX, client!LWJ, Horny WangXian)

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3. For fic finder: An mpreg fic: in the Gusu lectures Jin Zixuan rapes Wei Wuxian, and so Madame Yu pulls WWX out of classes and drags him back to Lotus Pier where he is confined in secret for a year to have the child. The story continues on through the canon storyline with WWX repeatedly clashing with JZX especially over his engagement to Yanli. LWJ realizes that JZX hurt WWX and stands by WWX’s side to face JZX. I think it was a very long fic.(wangxian endgame, not WWX/JZX)

FOUND! secrets for the stars to keep by UchiHime (M, 37k, WangXian, XuanXian, XuanLi, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mpreg, Canon Divergence, not a/b/o, Hurt/Comfort, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Recovery)

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4. Help me please! I am struggling to find a fic due to tumblr’s dumb search system (I know I originally found it due to this blog). The fic involves Lan Zhan slowly turning into jade and Wei Wuxian is asked to help bc he is great at breaking curses! It turns into the two of them basically doing a bucket list for Lan Zhan and it was very cute! @flamboyantly-asexual​

FOUND! A Curse of a Different Color by nickel710 (G, 35k, WangXian, XiChengQing, Modern with Magic, Modern Cultivation, Curses, Curse Breaking, Asexual polyamory, Repressed LWJ, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Drunk LWJ, Falling In Love, WWX Being an Idiot, Non-explicit vomit, just a tiny reference to it, Anxiety)

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5. Hi! For the fic finder, I vaguely remember reading a summary where lwj turns into a girl and has to have an orgasm in order to get back to being a boy or something along those lines? Sorry, that's the only thing I remember about it but I need it 😭🙏🏼

FOUND! Coming Back to Yourself by acernor (E, 21k, WangXian, Vaginal Fingering, Cunnilingus, Oral Sex, Pining, Gender or Sex Swap, Vaginal Sex)

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6. Hi, I'm looking for a fic, large I believe, where a transmigrator was born as Xichen... Any idea which can be @krysaniar​

FOUND? the eve of dawn by theAbandoned_Grimoire (G,132k, LXC & LWJ, LXC & QHJ & LWJ, LQR & QHJ, NHS & NMJ, future wangxian, canon divergence, dumb LXC au, hurt/comfort, angst & feels, fluff, dysfunctional family, happy ending, implied/referenced character death, minor character death, slow burn)

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7. Hello! I’m looking for a fic I read a while back. My memory is a bit vague, so take with a grain of salt. Plot: Lan Wangji is stressed (forgot if it was just stress or if it was autism related) so Wei Wuxian uses his body as a weighted blanket, just laying on top of LWJ. (I think WWX buys him an actual weighted blanket later on but LWJ prefers WWX as a weighted blanket. Also, I think they get together at end of fic, but I’m not sure.) thanks in advance for your help! It’s greatly appreciated! @dweebdaweeb

FOUND? Happy for Now by ScarlettStorm (E, 79k, Female WangXian, Modern AU, no magic, Rule 63, Cisswap, There Was Only One Bed, romance author au, Adhd wwx, service top LWJ, Pining, Smut, Comedy, Minor Angst, major shenanigans, horny yearning, furtive masturbation, Cunnilingus, Vaginal Fingering, Sex Toys) there was a scene like that in 'Happy for Now' by ScarlettStorm

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8. hi ! i’m looking for a fic set in post canon where i’m pretty sure wangxian we’re tg, they go on a hunt where smth puts everyone to sleep and eventually kills. but rlly the curse tricks you into showing u a horrible nightmare that u think is ur reality so u stay asleep. wei ying sees lan zhan die in front of him and he’s super angry and resentful that lan zhan would leave him, and after the funeral he ends up leaving cloud recesses and suzhui bc he can’t be there without him. eventually he is woken up and finds out it was a dream, but wei ying talks to lan zhan and is like “how did you not resent me i chose to leave you”. i cant find it anywhere !!

FOUND? more damage than a soul should see by Kika988 (M, 12k, WangXian, Heavy Angst, Whump, Post-Canon, Please see notes for specific warnings!)

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9. Hello Mods!

I have two fics I'm looking for, that I have regrettably lost amidst my 53 pages of AO3 subscriptions (yes it is a lot no I will not shrink it I have 20+ fandoms I enjoy I am an unrepentant).

A) 1st is a Golden core reveal fic which also included Wangji telling Wuxian about the marriage ribbon and the two of them serving tea to Jiang Cheng and Yanli after it.

B) 2nd is a modern AU fic where Wuxian is a Hacker? Code writer? for his main job but also is a music teacher I think while Wangji works in hospital? They have a big concert together is what I remember.

Any help finding these two gems is greatly appreciated! (^_^♪)

9B)

FOUND? Come Around and Stay by trippednfell (M, 160k, WangXian, NieLan, Modern AU, Slow Burn, Kid Fic, Found Family, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, PTSD, Blood and Injury, Dissociation, So much trauma, Angst with a Happy Ending, Takes a while to work through it, Musicals, POV Alternating, Baking, Yunmeng reconciliation (eventually), Friend Zoning, Literal Sleeping Together, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks)

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10. I'm looking for a fic where they mention that something that sometimes stops cultivators leaving the sects and going rogue is having to pay the forge prices of their swords. IIRC it was in the context of the Lan sect helping WWX get out from the Jiangs by paying the forge price for him. Please and thank you!

FOUND! Rotten Work by ShanaStoryteller (Not rated, 64k, JL & WWX, wangxian, post-canon, protective WWX, protective JL, JC & WWX reconciliation, reluctant matchmaker JL, pre-JL/LJY) Rotten Work by ShanaStoryteller mentions disciples that leave have to pay to keep their sword, but it's about Luo Qingyang and the Jins

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11. Hi! It has been a while. So there's this ff that I have read before and I cannot remember the title. So it goes like

Wei Ying was going to destroy the Yin Tiger Tally and he knows he's gonna die in process. Jin Ling's 100th day is also coming up so he insists A-Yuan to go there too with someone I cannot remember (but I think it was Song Lan) and he told A-Yuan to find Lan Zhan. I think he also wrote some letters for the people invited there to read. A-Yuan started crying I think and yelling that Gold was bad (he was refering to the Jins because they tortured them on camps before).

Pov to Wen Qing and Wen Ning. They weren't aware that Wei Ying was going to destroy the Yin Tiger. I think Wei Ying told them to buy something or collect something. So while they were out Wei Ying started to destroy the Yin Tiger. Wen Qing senses something was wrong and hurriedly went back to the Burial Mounds. Time skip Wei Ying still dies (?) Wen Qing was trying to revive him until she passes out. Time skip again Lan Zhan Jiang Yanli Jin Zixuan came to the burial mounds, Jin Zixuan got shot by an arrow and was poisoned so Jiang Yanli find Wen Qing and beg at her to save her husband. I don't remember much but at some point they saw Wei Ying's corpse.

Last time I read it, it was still incomplete. I hope you can help me with this. Thank you @hellothere9597​

FOUND? #11 i think its a deleted fic. The title is When I'm Gone by qiankun_pouch . Its fit the description that are mentioned

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12. Hi I'm looking for a fic where Wei ying is obessed with marrying a rich man, so he goes to parties with meng Yao looking for one..Meanwhile Lan Zhan his room mate is rich and hiding it. He detests those who seek money. They have chemistry. But Wei ying never wants to risk being back in poverty. And Lan Zhan he into him a lot but he doesn't want Wei ying to be with him for Money.Wen ning is also a roommate. @imgonnablogtheworldtodeath

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13. Hello!! This is a fic finder request but first I have to let you know that ur all doing gods work and that I appreciate u all sm!!

Ok so im not sure if im doing this correctly but I’m looking for this fic that I lost where lwj almost dies in nightless city saving jyl. Lxc was able to save him by binding their souls together or smth at the last minute and then he hid lwj away in qinghe where he’s basically in a comatose state. Wwx thinks lwj is dead and blames himself and iirc he turns himself in at cr and gets whipped? Also lxc 100% blames wwx for lwj’s near death and pretty much hates him. I also remember that when lwj woke up and wwx saw him he went a little crazy and wouldn’t believe he was real

Again thank you all sm for your hard work!! @kitekichenqin​

FOUND? If I Could Go Back in Time by Runningbarefoot (M, 122k, WangXian, NieLan, Canon Divergence, Role Reversal, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, Loss, YLLZ WWX, Eventual Happy Ending, The Twin Jade Brotherhood, Hurt/Comfort, Healing, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Twin Prides of Yúnmèng Dynamics, Slow Burn)

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14. Hello! I am looking for this fic I read a reaaaaally long time ago. The only thing I remember is that wwx died but not really when he was on his way to jin lings one month celebration (ik it's really vague up till here) and wen ning takes him back and then goes to the banquet and talks with the main characters there privately. Thanks in advance! @la-diabla

FOUND? End Racism in the OTW | The Fire Lapping Up the Creek by notevenyou (E, 66k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Injury, Injury Recovery, Blood, Respiratory Illness, Major Illness, Fever, Grief/Mourning, Burial Mounds, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Hunger and food scarcity, Surgery, Fix-It of Sorts)  

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15. During Gusu lectures LWJ and WWX spar and something sparks between them like dual cultivation? I think they were already in a relationship at that point, and during the spar they are giddy with the thrill of the fight and, feeling their energy circling, it gets them horny and they, pardon the crassness, jerk each other off in a hallway after they drag each other off the field. @gloriousclotpole

FOUND! 🧡 Stunted, Starving Juvenility by TomatenMark (E, 663k, WangXian, WIP, Fix-it of sorts, Talisman master WWX, Not JFM Friendly, Study Arc, Getting together, Fluff and Angst, Engagement)

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16. hellooooo I've been looking for this fic but I can't find it all I remember is Thant lwj goes back in the past after wwx's death (during the cloud recess study arc) and it ends withe a threesome with him wwx and younger lz. also at the end he goes back to the futur to wait for 'his' wwx can you help ????? thanks for all that you do !!!!!✨✨✨✨✨✨

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17. hii i was looking for this wangxian fic where I think they accidentally end up taking care of a-yuan? the only thing i remember from the fic is that around the end social services or cps take a-yuan away from wangxian for a day or two and then they have to go sign some papers before they can have a-yuan back. that's all i remember sorry 😭 i read it a long time ago maybe 2020/2021? I've been looking for it for ages and i can't find it, please help 🥺

FOUND? All those roads are pointing to you by jiejieaini (E, 81k, WangXian, Modern AU, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Drowning, Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bunnies, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Dubious Consent, Dom/sub Undertones, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, WangXian Have a Breeding Kink, Rimming, Panic Attacks, Anxiety, Marriage Proposal)

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18. Zero idea if you still do this, but Im looking for a certain fanfic which is about lwj and wwx moving together i think because he was kicked out by madam yu, because he outed himself and I remember Lan Xichen being very supportive and even going back to the house to retrieve wwx‘s belongings and ofc lwj and wwx fall in love other the time course

FOUND? Found Family by fyredancer (T, 10k, WangXian, Modern AU, Fluff, Getting Together, POV Outsider, Dysfunctional Family, Coming Out, Bad Parenting, Protective Older Brothers, Protective Siblings)

FOUND? Where is home? by SpicyRamen_10969 (M, 42k, WIP, WangXian, Modern AU, High School, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Coming Out, Not Jiang Family Friendly, Supportive LQR, Good Sibling LXC, Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, JC Being an Asshole, Possible Smut?)

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19. Hello, this is an FicFinder request.

I don't remember much, but it was a rare-pairing of WRH and WWX. I'm not sure if it was a time travel fic. When bunny was 14 or something, a water deity came from the waters of Yunmeng and told him of his powers/potentials. Bunny then was take. To kunlun mountain or smth like that and found out that he controlled the void, darkness, some elements as well. He meditated and became immortal and had lived for more than 200 years in another realm. In Yunmeng, he was still a kid and went to seclusion to complete his meditation or something. He also had a wife/lover in underworld and it was a mix of Greek mythology and others as well. @tinyfoxpeach

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20. I particularly remember that it is a four part series with one fic rewritten. It's basically post burial mounds siege where wwx ascended to immortality, and lwj ascended after his 33 discipline whip punishment. Lwj's injuries were so grave that it carried to his ascension. It's not specified but lwj ends up in wwx's domain and wwx goes batshit after finding out what the lan sect did and confronted them. Mostly fluff and angst. @bananatoffeepie​

FOUND? Deity AU by crypticidentity (M, 5k, wangxian, hurt/comfort, madness, implied/Referenced character death, whipping, angst, protective WWX, BAMF WWX, deity WWX, deity LWJ) check all the tags before reading!

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[incarnadinedreams]

Jiang Cheng was silent, as though he had finally become calmer. Wei WuXian put his hand on his shoulder again, "In the future, you'll be the sect leader, and I'll be your subordinate, like your father and my father. So what if the GusuLan Sect has its Two Jades? The Yunmeng Jiang Sect will have its Two Prides! So, shut up. Who said that you don't deserve to be the sect leader? Nobody can say this, even you can't either. If you do you're looking for a beating."

Jiang Cheng snorted, "You see how you are right now? Who can you beat up?"

-- Ch. 56, ExR translation

I've seen the take around that Wei Wuxian never broke any promises to Jiang Cheng, because in the 'Twin Heroes of Yunmeng' promise he said they would be like their fathers. Since Wei Changze left Yunmeng, then Wei Wuxian was never intending to actually be Jiang Cheng's right-hand man, and therefore no broken promises. Easy peasy.

And I personally just can't get behind that interpretation. I do think that in a more meta sense the parallel is interesting; that's part of the whole tragic irony of the situation. And that only works if Wei Wuxian didn't mean it that way, but it ended up becoming true anyway, in the most horrible and unpleasant ways. And I do think there can be some interesting exploration of the way promises can mean different things to different people without either of them really being wrong.

But I feel like it's doing a huge disservice to Wei Wuxian's character to run with the take that he actually meant to have some sort of loophole in there. It's very much a miss the forest for the trees kind of thing. Sure, you've successfully gotten him out of one broken promise... but what would that mean, if it were true?

I just don't think the line about their fathers was some sort of tricksy, cunning thing he inserted as a gotcha. He wasn't trying to legalese his way out of it, he wasn't trying to pull one over on Jiang Cheng. Viewing it that way kind of destroys what was, for me, one of the most emotionally poignant moments of the novel. If it were the case, he'd be rather shallow and manipulative for it, and that just doesn't resonate with me. Not to mention it doesn't make much sense to carefully insert a loophole into a promise he never needed to make in the first place.

As a Yunmeng Shuangjie Enjoyer, for me this scene is like the valiant last stand of innocence. Up to this point, our plucky protagonist and friends have escaped every trial largely unscathed. The comically evil villain has been resoundingly humiliated (for now), the big angry turtle of slaughter has been slaughtered, everyone made it home in one piece after a romantic(?) cave interlude, more or less. It was difficult, sure, but our heroes prevailed in the end. A few injuries, some scars, but nothing really bad - yet.

There's drama, there's strife, but at this point it's of a more personal, domestic nature: Jiang Cheng's sadness at what he feels is his father's dislike, his sense of inadequacy and being overlooked, his mother's scolding, the stress and discord within the household regarding rumors and Wei Wuxian's ambiguous role, and the pain of being pulled in between his parents. Painful, to be sure, just very limited in scope compared to what we know is coming.

But in the midst of that turmoil, this scene is Wei Wuxian giving Jiang Cheng hope for a future where he can forge his own path. That they can create something different but wonderful, with Wei Wuxian by his side, where it doesn't matter what rumors are going around or what mistakes their parents have made. It's an 'us against the world' moment; it's an outright declaration of a bond that had been, as far as we know, largely unspoken and assumed up to this point.

Whatever type of bond you read into them having, it solidifies something between them. It's putting into words his confidence in Jiang Cheng's potential when he believes his father doubts him. This is one of the few ways he is allowed to express unwavering support for Jiang Cheng in a sea of ambiguous ties and fraught relationships.

It's supposed to be tragic. It's supposed to be the shining light that gets snuffed out by the darkness and horrors that follow. The tragedy is that promises earnestly made sometimes must be broken, no matter how good the intentions were when they were made. The tragedy is that it's the enormity of their sacrifices for each other that, unknowingly, drive them apart. It's the secrets they keep to spare one another, it's the slow building of a death-spiral of conflicting priorities and duties, it's the very roles the promise was meant to bridge the gap between that makes this promise untenable, impossible to keep.

And I believe that's why we see, so much later, that this promise is the crux of Jiang Cheng's breakdown at Guanyin Temple, even after everything else that had happened.

Jiang Cheng cried soundlessly, but tears had already streaked across his face. To cry in such an unsightly way in front of others was almost impossible for him in the past. But every single moment that passed from now on, as long as the golden core remained in his body, as long as it could still revolve, he'd forever remember this feeling.

He choked, "... You said I'd be the sect leader and you'd be my subordinate, you said you'd help me your whole life, you said you'd never betray the YunmengJiang Sect... You said so yourself."

"..." After a moment of silence, Wei WuXian replied, "I'm sorry. I broke my promise."

-- Ch. 102

I believe what Jiang Cheng is really grieving is that bright-eyed, optimistic vision of the future they'd shared in that moment, us against the world, together, and there are so few ways they're allowed to express the weight of everything they mean to each other that he can only cling to a promise that represents the distillation of their ties to one another.

And if Wei Wuxian never really meant any of it, if he'd been planning an out from the beginning, if he'd never shared the dream too, that would just be kinda shitty and boring instead of compellingly tragic.

[tbgkaru-woh]

I love your Nie Huaisang, he's so pretty!! I love the scheming pretty man so badly. Are there any Huaisang ships you like? I don't necessarily ship Wei Ying and him but I do think they got drunk and made out at least thrice

thank you ♥♥ the usual SangCheng was a ship i really enjoyed alongside chengxuan, jiang cheng has two hands and all that (well, actually i don't really do poly-shipping, it's more that i like those ships for him in different periods of time or scenarios, for someone who doesn't seek or like romance, jiang cheng is BOOKED.) just nhs pulling jc out of his shell, jc begrudgingly following nhs or listening to his wet dreams or something equally ridiculous, nhs being the same loud but compassionate presence that wwx used to be. them getting lcose during gusu days and then parting and then later down the line, with everything that happened, huaisang is still there, still the same, the one stable thing that hasn't change and jc would just kinda fall into his arms for an ounce of comfort, knowing nhs won't tell or make it weird. i really enjoyed wwx and nhs' friendship and they have big fuckbuddy energy before they go in their respective directions (wwx to lwj and nhs just stays free but "occupied" with different partner each time). really enjoy the shameless cockiness of them, i had a fic planned that's basically just big orgy of everyone to "strengthen" the alliance bonds and seeing as there's members like lwj, jzx and jc, wwx and nhs were the ones to brea kthe ice and get it all going :D i had a lot of fun with that idea but sadly it didn't get far as i'm already neck deep in near-done WIPs I can't seem to finish :')

i've never quite gotten into niecest and not because i'm against fictional sibling ships, i don't see the IT factor in the dynamic on a romantic way despite really enjoying them being protective of each other and understanding the visual appeal. I guess I enjoy them more where each of the brothers have their quirk, one is this playful slut (/postiive) and one bagged the forbidden fruit that is lxc, it just makes up for a fun dynamic :'D but i think i may be convinced if someone brings up a good idea

i also like nhs and jgy in their dnyamic BEFORE nhs learned about jgy's schemes, i liked jgy being the only peer for nhs and being gentle with him, even though nhs is this little lordling and jgy is basically their servant of sorts (SORRY IF I MISUNDERSTAND THE CANON DYNAMIC BUT THIS IS THE DYNAMIC I LIKE) and nhs talking to him like peer-to-peer and opening up and them covering for each other from nmj etc. i really enjoy that ;v; nhs needing jgy more than jgy needs nhs but it's fine, jgy is a giver. going from this comfort to how they grew apart, with jgy gone nhs's quarters grew quiet and cold and then jgy not acknowledging him much once he made it into jin's high status, nhs learning of jgy's crimes later on, it's just the good kind of heartbreaking.

my guilty pleasure is also nhs and jzx, not only because i love zixuan, but also because i enjoy the idea of the two lordlings meeting up since childhood for pleasantries and nhs always giving jzx's bad behavior the benefit of the doubt because not only is he not judgmental, but also he can understand where jzx is coming from. nhs trying to loosen jzx up as someone who's his peer and not "beneath" him, be open with him and often poke at his prudish inexperienced side when it comes to relationships :') nhs slowly including jzx into his problem trio (wwx-nhs-jc), him and wwx making jzx do something illegal during their gusu days and then having a laugh riot about it. idk, i feel like nhs is greatly compassionate when it comes to this and also i think he could acknowledge jzx's qualities or his good looks. publicly, in front of his friends, often.

[bloody-bee-tea]

Gift for me

1) I am not back into Mingcheng, I'm very sorry to disappoint on that. This fic has been ready to go for a year now, and I am kind of happy to finally get it off my desktop XD

2) Happy New Year, may it be filled with love and softness and laughter and happiness for us all

Part 1 (Happy Birthday) Part 2 (Selfish Gift)

It’s the third birthday Nie Mingjue spends with Jiang Cheng right by his side and by now he stopped expecting anything. Jiang Cheng blew him out of the water when he actually cared more about his birthday than about any New Year’s celebration and then a year later he did it again when he asked Nie Mingjue to move in together.

This year—well this year, it’s Nie Mingjue who has a surprise for Jiang Cheng.

He had wanted to give it to him in bed, when they were both still sleep-warm and relaxed but of course Jiang Cheng doesn’t stick to any kind of plan at all and isn’t in bed when Nie Mingjue wakes up.

“A-Cheng,” Nie Mingjue groans out, his hands grasping at already cold sheets and his mood already turning for the worse.

“I’m right here, my heart,” Jiang Cheng says with a smile as he sticks his head into the bedroom but he’s not where he’s supposed to be, which is warm and lazy in Nie Mingjue’s arms.

“What are you doing?” Nie Mingjue demands to know, mustering his best glare even though he knows it’s not much, this soon after waking up.

“We’re getting guests in about half an hour,” Jiang Cheng informs him and Nie Mingjue lets his head drop back with a groan.

“What? No. Why? What happened to spending my birthday in bed together?” he demands to know because this wasn’t the plan.

“But we woke up together all year,” Jiang Cheng gives back and at that Nie Mingjue throws him an outraged look.

“You think waking up together every other day gets you out of waking up together on my birthday?” Nie Mingjue is honestly lost for words how Jiang Cheng could arrive at such a horrendously wrong conclusion but he softens a bit when Jiang Cheng laughs at him.

It is still one of Nie Mingjue’s most cherished sounds.

“Not really,” he admits as he comes closer to sit on Nie Mingjue’s side of the bed. “But you know that Huaisang and Xuanyu are leaving for their holiday early tomorrow morning so we decided to have your birthday celebration a little bit earlier.”

“I preferred it when we celebrated my birthday a week late,” Nie Mingjue grumbles even as he pulls Jiang Cheng in for a kiss.

“Liar,” Jiang Cheng whispers back and kisses Nie Mingjue again. “Happy birthday, my soul.”

“Good morning, my heart,” he gives back, still a bit unhappy with how this day is going but he guesses he has to make the best of it now. “Will we have dinner alone, then?” he asks because so far Jiang Cheng at least made sure to always spend one meal a day with Nie Mingjue alone.

“Yes. I will kick everyone out after cake, don’t worry. We’ll do dinner and a movie on the couch, with all the cuddles you could want.”

It feels a little bit like a consolation prize with how cold the bed was when Nie Mingjue woke up but he will take whatever he can get.

“Fine,” he finally heaves out because what else can he really say and Jiang Cheng laughs at him.

“Don’t even pretend to be a grump, I know you too well,” he teases him and flicks his forehead for good measure too.

“You’ll still have to make it up to me,” Nie Mingjue decides as he gets out of bed and Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow at him in question.

“And how would I do that?” he wants to know and Nie Mingjue gives him a devilish grin as he leans down to give him a much more heated kiss.

“You’ll simply have to wake up in my arms for at least a month straight,” he then tells him and leaves Jiang Cheng right there on the bedside as he walks off to the bathroom to get himself ready for their guests.

And to wrap up his gift in a different way, now that his original plan has been ruined.

Nie Mingjue laughs out loud when he hears Jiang Cheng splutter behind him and he has to admit that this birthday is still good, simply because Jiang Cheng is right there with him.

~*~*~

The day itself is busy. Nie Huaisang and Mo Xuanyu come over for brunch but leave early in the afternoon because they still have some packing to do. Nie Mingjue’s friends arrive shortly before Nie Huaisang and Mo Xuanyu leave but true to his word, Jiang Cheng throws them all out an hour after cake.

Nie Mingjue watches it with a smile but he lets him do it because it is what was promised and Nie Mingjue is now actually looking forward to a relaxing evening with Jiang Cheng.

He loves his family and friends but these celebrations are always a bit too much for him, especially if they are this stretched out.

“Tired?” Jiang Cheng predictably asks when he comes back from kicking the last lingering friend out and finds Nie Mingjue on the couch, his head tilted back and his eyes closed.

“Yes,” Nie Mingjue easily says because admitting to these things is always easy with Jiang Cheng.

“Too much?” Jiang Cheng asks next and stands behind the couch, so he can scratch lightly at Nie Mingjue’s scalp.

“Mh, no, just right,” Nie Mingjue admits. “An hour longer though—” he trails off, trusting Jiang Cheng to understand what he means and when Jiang Cheng laughs, he knows he did.

“And you would have started to murder people, I get it,” he chuckles out and then leans over to press a kiss to Nie Mingjue’s forehead. “But no murder on your birthday. Only relaxing stuff for us now.”

“Are you going to cook?” Nie Mingjue asks, and he reaches up to grab Jiang Cheng by the forearms.

Suddenly the idea that Jiang Cheng will cook in the kitchen and Nie Mingjue is left with nothing to do but watch him seems like the worst idea ever.

“Nope,” Jiang Cheng cheerfully tells him and simply flips over the back of the couch when it becomes apparent that Nie Mingjue is not going to let him go. “I thought we order in today.”

“Good thinking,” Nie Mingjue hums out, leaning over to steal a kiss and then wrangles Jiang Cheng around until he’s arranged to his liking, mainly in Nie Mingjue’s arms and with no way to run off again.

“Clingy much?” Jiang Cheng teases him but Nie Mingjue only hums because Jiang Cheng is fooling no one. He went boneless the moment Nie Mingjue pulled him into his arms and so Nie Mingjue simply presses a kiss to his head.

They doze off like that on the couch for a while, and Nie Mingjue has to admit that this is still good; it’s not waking up with Jiang Cheng in bed levels of good, but it comes close, simply because they get to share this soft moment together.

And even though it has been a year Nie Mingjue hasn’t quite forgotten what happened on his last birthday, so when Jiang Cheng’s stomach grumbles and basically wakes them up, Nie Mingjue laughs.

“You’re so rude,” Jiang Cheng grumbles, pawing at him to try and get away, but Nie Mingjue is not going to let him.

“And you’re so starved,” he teases right back, leaning in for a kiss when Jiang Cheng pouts at him.

“I’ll truly be starved by the time dinner comes around,” he complains and Nie Mingjue shrugs.

“Get some more cake then?” he tells him even though he has no intention of letting Jiang Cheng out of his arms any time soon.

“First let’s order something,” Jiang Cheng decides, fishing for his phone.

He makes quick work of their order and doesn’t even bother to ask what Nie Mingjue would like; they both have their favourites at several different delivery places and Nie Mingjue is content to simply be surprised by dinner tonight.

“Now let go of me, I’ll starve for real,” Jiang Cheng then says as he puts the phone away and he tries to struggle out of Nie Mingjue’s arms whose intentions haven’t changed.

“Nope, you’ll have to live off my love for you for a while,” Nie Mingjue tells him with a laugh that only gets deeper when Jiang Cheng flops around like a fish.

“You’re ridiculous,” Nie Mingjue says when Jiang Cheng finally exhausted himself and Jiang Cheng blinks up at him.

“You love me,” he says and Nie Mingjue will probably never stop marvelling at the fact that Jiang Cheng doesn’t doubt this at all.

It makes Nie Mingjue very proud to know that he loves Jiang Cheng well enough that none of Jiang Cheng’s insecurities can ruin this.

“That I do,” Nie Mingjue immediately says and drops a kiss to Jiang Cheng’s nose.

They get lost in trading kisses until it rings at their door and even the sweet promise of food is almost not enough to lure Jiang Cheng away from Nie Mingjue.

“Weren’t you starving?” he finally asks when Jiang Cheng makes no move to open the door and that finally prompts Jiang Cheng to get up.

“I was living off your love,” he throws over his shoulder even as he goes to retrieve their food and Nie Mingjue takes that little window of opportunity to dart into the bedroom to get his gift.

The gift giving part of the day is already over, but Nie Mingjue didn’t want to do this with everyone else around; this is just for him and Jiang Cheng, at least for today.

He makes a detour through the kitchen to bring supplies to the living-room and when he comes back Jiang Cheng is already unloading their food on the table.

“Do you know what you want to watch?” Jiang Cheng asks him as he works, not sparing a glance for Nie Mingjue.

“Yep,” Nie Mingjue says, even though a movie is very far from his mind right now and when Jiang Cheng expectantly turns around to him, he slips the gift onto Jiang Cheng’s plate.

He’s of course not fast enough to escape Jiang Cheng’s notice, so he immediately turns around to look at what Nie Mingjue just did.

“What the hell is this?” Jiang Cheng demands to know, crossing his arms in front of his chest and Nie Mingjue sits down on the couch, pretending that his heart isn’t about to beat out of his chest.

“What does it look like?” he innocently gives back and Jiang Cheng narrows his eyes at him.

“Like a goddamn present.”

“Then that’s probably what it is,” Nie Mingjue teasingly says and doesn’t shrink back under Jiang Cheng’s glare.

“It’s your birthday. Why the hell am I getting a gift?”

“It is, technically, a gift for me,” Nie Mingjue says and now the glare melts off Jiang Cheng’s face to turn into a confused frown.

“But I’m the one who’s supposed to open it?”

“Yes.”

“Mh,” Jiang Cheng hums out and gingerly picks the wrapped gift up.

He tries to shake it to see if it rattles and he seems surprised when it does.

“Am I going to break it?”

“I don’t know. Are you?” Nie Mingjue laughs out when Jiang Cheng continues to poke at it instead of opening it up but finally he rips the wrapping paper apart.

He is met with a cardboard box Nie Mingjue found lying around in their bedroom this morning and it clearly does nothing to solve his confusion.

“What the hell is this?” he breathes out again, working on getting the box open and Nie Mingjue leans forward in anticipation.

It seems as if Jiang Cheng’s impatience finally won out because he rips the box open the last bit and then he immediately freezes.

And Nie Mingjue slides off the couch, onto one knee.

“My heart,” he starts as he reaches into the box to get the little black box out and it seems as just that is enough to make Jiang Cheng cry.

“Yes,” he gets out, his voice all choked up and Nie Mingjue laughs.

“I didn’t even say anything yet, don’t be so impatient,” he chides him but he catches Jiang Cheng’s hand in his to press a kiss to his fingers.

“My heart,” he repeats. “Will you give me the greatest birthday gift of them all and marry me?” he then asks and flicks the box open to reveal a ring.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Jiang Cheng chants out, tearing his gaze away from the ring and cupping Nie Mingjue’s face in his hands. “I will marry you, my soul,” he whispers and when he leans in to kiss Nie Mingjue the tears spill over.

“Best birthday ever,” Nie Mingjue mumbles when they part and he takes that opportunity to slide the ring on Jiang Cheng’s finger.

“Best birthday ever,” Jiang Cheng agrees, marvelling at the ring now on his hand and Nie Mingjue isn’t sure if he’s ever seen him smiling so much.

But to be fair, he isn’t sure if he’s ever smiled so much in his life before either.

“I love you,” Jiang Cheng tells him, intertwining their fingers and Nie Mingjue feels as if he’s going to melt with all the love he has for this man.

“I love you,” he gives back even though that should be pretty much obvious by now and then he pulls Jiang Cheng in for a kiss.

Their food is—yet again—cold by the time they manage to part enough to remember it but Nie Mingjue thinks if this is the tradition they are going to set for his birthday then he’s not going to mind that much.

Not if being incandescently happy comes right along with that.

[wuxianxkexing]

Not going to lie Jiang Cheng is the perfect ship character. Let me explain.

With Lan Xichen: Xichen is probably the most mentally stable character in the series. He would be the rock that Jiang Cheng needs in his life, one that he has never really had. Xichen is unfortunately too perfect and good for this world, a true cinnamon roll. Jiang Cheng can and will be the asshole for both of them when necessary, but for the most part they would pull each other from the extremes of the spectrum to make them both more balanced people. This ship is for people who just want the best for Jiang Cheng.

With Lan Wangji: Drama, drama, drama, but who doesn't like drama? This ship is enemies hate fucking each other. This ship is staying together only because the sex is that good. They don't actually do each other any good being together besides the prostate orgasms. The only ship that would make Lan Quiren wish it was Wei Wuxian instead. This ship is for people who only care about how hot the characters are, not their romantic compatibility at all.

With Nie Mingjue: Honestly daddy issues Jiang Cheng needs a DILF protector. It would do him good to not have to be the strong one for once. I can't really think of what he could do for Nie Mingjue aside from being a person that Nie Mingjue could lavish with gifts, but you know what? Sometimes Sugar Daddy/Sugar Baby relationships work out. Unfortunately their relationship fights are probably kind of wild with both of their tempers but their dysfunctional asses think that it's "passion" instead of toxicity. This ship is for people who think lowkey toxic relationships are super romantic.

With Nie Huaisang: Another case of Jiang Cheng being the protector/asshole in the relationship but it's not a bad thing. Childhood friends to lovers is always OP romantic pairing and they both compliment each other rather well. Jiang Cheng is the responsible and take charge one, and Nie Huaisang is the fuck around because why not? one. Ideally Jiang Cheng's reliability would rub off on Nie Huaisang and Nie Huaisang's manic pixie dream girl energy would give color to Jiang Cheng's life instead of ruining it once again. This ship is for people who love it when one partner annoys the crap out of the other, grumpier, partner.

With Wen Qing: Could be a perfectly cute couple in an alternate universe. They both have similar thoughts and dedication to family. Wen Qing would teach Jiang Cheng to put his ego aside because she sure as fuck isn't going to. Jiang Cheng might have Zidian but he is the whipped one in this relationship. This ship is for people who like it when the woman dominates.

With Wen Ning: Wen Ning would fall in love with Jiang Cheng after he was nice to him one time. Jiang Cheng probably picked up his pencil or held the door for him once in Cloud Recesses and now Wen Ning simps hard for him. Wen Ning would at some point assume that they were already in a relationship because they spent so much time together and Jiang Cheng was always coming to his rescue but Jiang Cheng would be oblivious. This ship is for people who like slow burns/unobtainable relationships.

With Jin Guangyao: Jiang Cheng would definitely encourage Jin Guangyao to stop being such a brown noser and to live his life more authentically, potentially avoiding all of the problems that came about as a result of Jin Guangyao's extreme desire to fit in. With Lan Xichen's calm and steadfast acceptance and Jiang Cheng's encouragement to give less of a fuck what others think I think Jin Guangyao's life could have been different. After all Jiang Cheng wholly accepted Wei Wuxian as his actual brother despite it not being the case in reality, so I don't think Jiang Cheng is as judgmental about lineage as the average cultivator. As for Jin Guangyao he could've put his political prowess to better use in the Jiang Sect and taught Jiang Cheng how to play politics better. This ship is for people who like fix it ships.

Jiang Cheng can just be shipped with any other character and its fine. Like you can't ship Wei Wuxian with anyone other than Lan Wangji, it is just wrong and illegal because they are soulmates, but Jiang Cheng? Jiang Cheng who got blacklisted by every. single. female. cultivator? (And I think that is the funniest shit ever even though I love him. Like what could he have possibly done?) Who has canonically only been on 3 dates in his entire life? Who is the one character in the series who is all but officially confirmed to be a virgin by mxtx? Ship him with whoever, who cares? Literally any ship is a step up for our man and most of them would make him at least a slightly better person. Except Xue Yang, they'd make each other worse (unless that is your thing).

[captain-apostrophe]

20 questions for fic writers

How many works do you have on AO3? 56!

What's your total AO3 word count? 866,338

What fandoms do you write for? Just MDZS/The Untamed, though in my misspent youth there was one multivolume handwritten Lord of the Rings fanfic.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 1. we both know better (maybe we don't) 2. the hand is a voice 3. not mad about it 4. hard to say (it's all for you) 5. alone at christmas?

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? I do, though occasionally it takes me a minute to find the juice to do so. I guess it feels nice to acknowledge that I've seen and appreciate the comments people leave!

What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? I don't think there's any contest that Confluence is the tearjerker, though does it count as angstiest if it's technically a positive/bittersweet ending and not actually a sad one? Maybe one of the prompt fics - perhaps Play, where Xue Yang re-enacts a grisly past life's fate.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? I'm not sure that's really quantifiable when almost everything I've written has more or less had a happy ending. If it's not cheating to choose a WIP, probably WBKB since the eventual epilogue is about everybody involved having their happily ever after.

Do you get hate on fics? Not generally. I did get some anon hate at one point that was stressful but I don't even remember what it was about. Shipping Jiang Cheng with Nie Huaisang when certain unhinged people wanted JC for themselves, possibly.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Yep. The kind is anything I find hot, I guess. Does this mean is it het? Is it vanilla? Well once it was gay noncon between a guy and a very mean mermaid so... I'd say "all kinds".

Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Nope! I've written a few short fics putting the characters into other media in the place of its characters (Howl's Moving Castle, GBBO, some Shakespeare) but I don't tend to see the appeal of merging two different casts together.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I'm aware of, so... fingers crossed!

Have you ever had a fic translated? Someone did start a translation of Not Mad About It into Russian, but that's all I'm aware of.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Nope, but I also haven't written much that wasn't heavily plotted, planned, polished and generally discussed to death with @megalodont

What's your all-time favorite ship? If we base this on who I've spent the most time writing about it'd be SangCheng, but I wouldn't say I really have one favourite. I like some and not others, and my preference varies.

What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? I don't think I should answer this without my lawyer present (aka I would really love to finish every one of them, and a couple planned sequels too, but unless my mojo comes back from the war with a serious second wind I don't think it's realistic to hold my breath for any of it)

What are your writing strengths? Settings. I love to describe a place, to make it a character.

What are your writing weaknesses? Um lately? Getting words onto the page.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? For myself? I would have to rely on machine translation or have someone else do it, both of which have obvious downsides. For people doing it in general? It can be interesting when the intention is for the POV character (and therefore the audience) not to know what's being said, but otherwise it's distracting at best and pulls me completely out of the story.

First fandom you wrote for? Lord of the Rings. It was at the height of my Karl Urban phase so probably revolved around Eomer. I wonder if I still have it in a box somewhere.

Favorite fic you've written? I'm really fond of quite a few of them, and it's always hard to narrow anything down to a single favourite (seriously, people have to stop asking me to choose just one of anything!), but Run might be the one I'm saddest not to get through. The vibe was so fun, I loved the magic system, and I think adding that to the source material really elevated it into something quite special.

Thanks for the tag, @mulberrylotus! I know that nobody ever takes "if you're reading this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged" seriously but I'm pretty out of things at the moment so... if you're reading this and want to do it, consider yourself tagged? I love seeing people fill these out and hate the anxiety around tagging folks so.

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

Other Delights

Extra for Tales From Jianghu Shopping Center - Wangxian's date at the record store! (huge thanks to dokidoki_to_kurakura on AO3 who had the galaxy brain take in the comments to make SongXiao the owners of the record store!)

[Masterpost] [AO3]

-/-

Wei Wuxian’s deft fingers flick through a slightly nonsensical collection of records stacked upright into a milk crate, and Lan Wangji wonders with a sort of clinical detachment if it’s normal for his throat to feel like a desert in response. He swallows thickly and regrets not having had more water with his lunch at Lotus Pier (it had been spicy enough by his standards that he’d had to down three glasses just to make it through the meal, but apparently he’s still somehow dehydrated). Wei Wuxian, thankfully, seems blissfully unaware of Lan Wangji’s plight, though unfortunately that also means that he’s apparently unaware of the lethality of his nimble fingers and can therefore see no reason to cut it out.

“Ah Lan Zhan, look at this one!!” Wei Wuxian cries triumphantly, so Lan Wangji lifts his gaze from the other boy’s hands curling around the edges of the vinyl sleeve to see what he’s actually holding - and promptly looks literally anywhere else, startled into embarrassment as Wei Wuxian laughs happily. “ ‘Whipped Cream and Other Delights’,” he muses, far too loudly. “I should get this to take back to Huaisang for his ah…collection.”

Lan Wangji, unwilling and unhappy lifetime friend to Nie Huaisang, knows just how much his friend would appreciate being given any kind of media that features a photo of a naked, well-endowed woman drenched in froths of whipped cream and ostensibly very little else. Which is precisely why he says, “Huaisang does not enjoy jazz.”

Wei Wuxian just laughs because he is one of the handful of people in this world who can tell when he’s actually trying to be funny - and in fact also laughs at him when Lan Wangji has no idea why, though it never feels mean now that he understands that’s simply Wei Wuxian’s character. Wei Wuxian obligingly slots the record back into where he’d pulled it from and Lan Wangji’s ears gradually begin to feel a little bit less like they’re about to catch on fire. 

Lusting after Wei Wuxian’s beautiful hands is one thing, but he absolutely draws the line at suggestive material in public. Or in private. Perhaps Huaisang is correct (which he will never say aloud even under pain of death) and he really should broaden his media horizons. Just a little bit. If that’s the sort of thing Wei Wuxian likes. The thought of asking Nie Huaisang for one of his gay porn magazines is, however, extremely and wildly horrifying, so he shoves the strange impulse as far away from the front of his mind as he can manage while Wei Wuxian shifts down to the next milk crate in this row to begin idly flicking through its contents.

Mountain Temple Records, Books, & More is the perfect place for a date, in Lan Wangji’s (granted, inexperienced) opinion. It might be the sort of place that Jiang Cheng would (and already did) make fun of them for choosing, but Lan Wangji doesn’t care what he thinks. All that matters is the way Wei Wuxian’s eyes had lit up when he’d seen the ramshackle two-story house in the historic section of town, the whole thing listing ever-so-slightly to the left and outwardly unremarkable save for the hand-painted wood sign in the front yard stating the name of the store.

The interior is cozy and overcrowded in the same way Cloud Recesses is, comfortably full of things that say, ‘Someone, somewhere, thought this was important enough to make. To save. To share.’ The fact that he knows the owners of it saved the house from foreclosure and demolition only makes him even more inclined to like it. He glances up from observing Wei Wuxian’s perusing to spot said owners behind the checkout counter, which is really just a short bookcase - topped with a chunky electric cash register - stuffed between two other taller bookcases crammed and overflowing with more secondhand volumes. He meets Song Zichen’s knowing gaze and offers a nod of greeting before he refocuses on the more important task at hand, though his ears are hot again with the strange sensation that he’s been seen through, rather than simply acknowledged.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian suddenly pipes up, a smile in his voice. “Do you know him? Isn’t that one of the owners?”

“Mn.” The affirmative works for both questions so he doesn’t bother to elaborate, instead reaching out for the punk album in Wei Wuxian’s hands now to add it to the wildly varied stack slowly accumulating in his arms since he knows Wei Wuxian will want it.

“Lan Zhaaaan!” Wei Wuxian protests, though whether it’s over his lack of further explanation or from his strange aversion to being spoiled is unclear.

“Wei Ying.”

“You know handsome men other than me? Should I be jealous?”

Lan Wangji wonders if he really needs ears or if it’s better to just cut them off for a bit of a reprieve from their constant burning.

“Song-Daozhang buys incense from us. He also frequents the same sorts of estate and antique sales as Uncle for books.” Lan Wangji gestures towards the bookcase to the right of the checkout counter, full of books that are visibly secondhand even from where they’re standing. “He told me of the grand opening when he was last in.”

“Ahhh I see, I see,” Wei Wuxian hums, matter solved to his satisfaction. “There’s no reason for me to be jealous then?” he teases just a little further with the air of a man testing the depth of a lake before jumping in. 

Lan Wangji fixes him with as serious of a Look as he can muster before he asserts, “No need.” The smug satisfaction he gets out having successfully flustered Wei Wuxian, self-appointed king of shameless behavior, lingers all the way through the vinyl section and halfway through their lazy browsing of the wall of cassettes.

-/-

Mountain Temple Records, Books, & More is maybe not the prettiest record store in the world, but to Xiao Xingchen it’s perfect. He and Zichen, tired of wandering for the time being, had decided to settle down somewhere with a decently-sized Chinese population and see what else - besides each other - life had to offer them. They’d spent the first few weeks in town couch surfing with the help of various kind souls who didn’t mind a couple of drifters hanging around, and then Zichen had stumbled upon a deal that had been too good to pass up.

A ramshackle old house smack in the middle of the ‘historic’ district of town (it’s roughly four square blocks of houses built in the 30’s, but it’s about as historic as town gets, so it counts), destined for demolition and being auctioned off at an absolute steal in a last-ditch attempt by the city to not have to pay for its removal or worry about selling the land. They’d managed to snap it up with barely a cent to their names, the city more than willing to offload the eyesore onto them at a bargain price (covered with a small loan from the city’s main bank), and just like that they’d had a house.

A house that - through months and months of labor and calling in every favor they could in order to renovate it cheaply into something both livable and workable - now pulls double duty as their living space and their store, as of their grand opening just yesterday.

As far as grand openings go, theirs had gone fairly smoothly, even with the heatwave to contend with and all. No one had expected them to have functioning AC in a house this old, and so the presence of several window units blasting air frigid enough that even Xiao Xingchen had been a little chilly had been a welcome enough surprise for so many people that they hadn’t even seemed to mind the close quarters - or the rather haphazard system Xiao Xingchen had developed for actually organizing everything. ‘Organizing’ in the very loosest sense, really, as neither he nor Zichen feel particularly pressed to conform to anything but their own whims in their space.

Things are a little bit quieter today with the initial excitement over and done with, but there are still quite a few people crowding the narrow walkways, chatting and flipping through their crates full of vinyls or scanning the contents of the overstuffed shelves in the back. There are a handful of kids lounging around on the pair of sofas crammed into the only corner they’d fit, and Xiao Xingchen can’t help but smile a little as he looks out over their little domain, their own small safe haven from the rest of the world.

They’d met hitchhiking across the same stretch of Arizona, and between them they’d done enough odd jobs along the way to snag a battered old Jeep from a guy in California. They’d called that car home for a couple of years, and though it doesn’t really run anymore Xiao Xingchen refuses to get rid of it (while Zichen teases him for being a sentimental fool, always with a tiny smile and an extra kiss to take out any possible sting). It’s nice, he thinks now, to have a more permanent home, a place where they’ve put down at least some shallow roots and collected all the sorts of things that make them happy that had been too inconvenient to keep with them when they’d been living out of the Cherokee.

Now, instead of a rotation of 9 or 10 tapes to cycle through until he wants a new one badly enough to discard one of the old, they have an entire wall dedicated to Xiao Xingchen’s favorite picks. Of course if anyone wants to buy them he’ll have to part with them, but the little lounge space doubles for listening if anyone wants to just borrow it, and despite his enjoyment of the cassettes he’s not emotionally attached - he’d rather see them go out into the world in the hands of someone who will listen to them and appreciate them, connect them to him with a little thread of something, anyway. (Zichen teases him for a sentimental fool for that too, but naturally Xiao Xingchen doesn’t mind.)

It’s Zichen who had decided to add a little used book section wherever they could fit it, and so Xiao Xingchen had been more than pleased to see that the books they have tend towards the odd - very much to his partner’s taste. He scours library and yard sales and estate auctions to collect the sort of flotsam they love to browse through in their spare time, always with a discerning eye for things that may be particularly useful (for himself) or whimsical (for Xiao Xingchen). It all crowds the overburdened shelves around the walls and operates on the same system that everything else in the shop does: if someone wants to hang out and read, more welcome they, and if they love anything enough to want to take it home then Xiao Xingchen is happy to sell it to a good home.

It’s after lunch when Xiao Xingchen spots them - two teenagers, about to finish high school if he had to guess, both of them lanky in a way that says they’re not quite finished growing though they’re already quite tall, nearly as tall as him and Zichen. Xiao Xingchen leans a little closer to Zichen sitting beside him behind the counter and his partner leans in to match him automatically even though he’s obviously engrossed in the book in his hands (his ability to socialize with strangers has been maxed out over the last day and a half, so naturally Xiao Xingchen won’t begrudge him a bit of time to himself while Xiao Xingchen actually mans the till).

“Zichen,” he murmurs, eyes still on the boys wandering through the short rows of record crates, the boy dressed head to toe in faded black and red chattering excitedly to the one in white who hasn’t allowed more than roughly six inches of space between them since they stepped through the door. “Zichen, has someone discovered parallel universes yet?” he teases with his usual irrepressible little smile.

“Hm? It’s possible I suppose. Why do you ask?”

“I believe we have encountered our younger selves.”

That gets Zichen’s attention enough to glance up from the paperback cradled in his hands out across the shop. The pair he’s noticed are easy to spot - even if the one in black weren’t so charismatic his companion’s stiff poise and pure white clothes in contrast to his companion would make them stand out easily - and he smiles a little wider when Zichen chuckles once beside him and offers the boy in white a short nod.

“If you say so, but you smile a lot more than that Lan kid, and I’ve never had that Jiang boy’s level of energy in my life.”

“Oh? You know them?” Xiao Xingchen looks away from the pair to look at his partner in delight, unaware that he’d made friends with the local kids in his meanderings around town.

“Sort of. Lan Wangji, the one in white - his uncle comes to a lot of the same estate sales I go to. He owns the antique shop over in the Jianghu Center where I get our incense, and Wangji or his brother will come to the sales when their uncle can’t. And I don’t know his name but the Jiang kid delivers for Lotus Pier with his brother, I see them both out on their bikes around town pretty much every day. Hard workers.”

Xiao Xingchen hums and reaches over below the cover of the counter to squeeze Zichen’s knee gently. “My Zichen, so wise in the ways of the world!” Zichen just offers him a little barely-there smile of his own before he turns back to his book and Xiao Xingchen looks back out over their little domain with a close eye on the pair.

“I think they’re out on a date,” he sighs happily. Zichen hums quietly in acknowledgement but doesn’t comment. “Maybe with their mannerisms aside, they do still remind me so much of us. You used to dote on me just like that Lan boy.”

He watches Lan Wangji carefully watching his companion’s hands as he flicks quickly through the records, the Jiang boy laughing audibly over their (seemingly nonsensical) filing system as he muses over what it could possibly be. Xiao Xingchen likes that he’s already realized that there is a pattern, even if he can’t tell what it is yet - most people have asked them why everything is arranged randomly, but in truth there’s nothing random about it. 

(The records are organized by Zichen’s taste, with his favorites closest to the register and those he doesn’t care as much for nearest to the door. The tapes are arranged in the same way to Xiao Xingchen’s taste, and the books are simply displayed in the order they were purchased. When Zichen brings home a new lot it goes into the next available empty spot on a shelf, simple as that.)

“Ahh Lan Zhan, we have to get this one!” the Jiang boy says excitedly as he pulls a sleeve free of the middle of a crate, eagerly turning to search for his friend only to visibly start when he finds that he’s so close at hand. “Ah?! Lan Zhan, why do you have so many already?!”

Xiao Xingchen, who has watched Lan Wangji carefully retrieve nearly every album his friend has lingered on each time he’s moved on to something else, hides a smile in his hand as he turns to ring up a girl with cloudy, somewhat unfocused eyes and an impressive collection of facial piercings who approaches with a small mountain of rattling cassettes in her hands.

“You got a problem with those boys?” she asks with a pop of her neon pink bubblegum. Xiao Xingchen chuckles quietly while he starts tallying up her total.

“Not at all, I’m simply comparing their behavior to mine and Zichen’s here when we were younger. Do you have a problem with those boys?”

“Nah, they’re cute. Just wanted to make sure you’re cool before I give you my money. I worked hard for this cash, you know!”

“Well that is a relief, as I appreciate knowing that a part of my music collection is going to someone cool like you.” Zichen huffs a little laugh at him through his nose for that, teasing him without words, but the girl just grins at him and sticks her hand out over the counter, clearly pleased.

“I’m A-Qing,” she says when he takes her hand to shake gently, rather amused himself. “You’re nice, which means you’re never getting rid of me now, gege!”

Xiao Xingchen can’t help but shake his head, still smiling gently at her. “Wouldn’t dream of it, A-Qing. Of course you’re welcome back anytime, and for as long as you’d like.”

A-Qing leaves with a jaunty salute, tapes rattling around in the canvas bag slung over her elbow, and Xiao Xingchen pointedly ignores Zichen’s amused, judgemental silence beside him in favor of going back to watching what he’s pretty sure is a first date happening right there in their store.

He watches the Jiang boy blush and preen under Lan Wangji’s obvious and heartfelt doting, and something about it squeezes in his chest. He scoots his stool a little closer to Zichen’s and reaches across the short distance between them to rest a light hand on his partner’s knee, safely hidden behind the checkout counter. Zichen, in response, shifts his grip on his book to drop a hand down to cover his, thumb stroking slowly against the delicate jut of his wrist. Neither of them have to say anything to know that they understand what the other’s feeling; for Xingchen, a soft nostalgia for meeting his first and only love out there in the middle of so much empty sky and endless sand. For Zichen, the early stages of their relationship when he’d devoted everything of himself to Xiao Xingchen to ensure he felt as loved as he possibly could in a world that he hadn’t totally understood yet (still doesn’t, if he’s being honest).

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji says, his voice surprisingly low and soft for such a stern-looking boy.

“Hm? What is it, Lan Zhan?”

Rather than replying verbally, Lan Wangji simply slides a tape out of its spot on the shelf to hold it out for the Jiang boy (but he’d called him Wei? Ah well, it’s not as if Xiao Xingchen can question odd family arrangements considering his own) to see. Wei Ying’s resulting delighted exclamation would naturally draw anyone’s eye to him, but Xiao Xingchen keeps watching Lan Wangji so he sees the quiet pleasure that softens his stern face, obviously pleased to have made his friend happy.

“Alright, I see your point,” Zichen murmurs; Xiao Xingchen glances at him, startled to find that he’d looked up to watch as well, and his gaze is heavy and dark as he watches the pair. “They seem like good kids. Add them to your gaggle of strange ducklings,” he adds, finally giving words to the silent teasing he’s been doing. Xiao Xingchen laughs softly and squeezes his knee as Zichen returns to his book.

He’s got a strange knack for collecting friendships among people that society would typically shy away from. He likes to blame it on the fact that he’d been whisked up as a toddler by Aunt Baoshan, along with whatever other motley children she could find and bring into the house for long enough to wrangle them into a family - it just feels natural to collect people he likes for one reason or another, there’s nothing so wrong with it. Besides, it means that should they ever need help for any reason there are people in nearly every state who they could call on, just as there are people everywhere that they would help in return.

Xiao Xingchen forces himself to stop staring and get back to watching the rest of the people hanging out around the store, and by the time he finishes ringing up a couple more people and making small talk with one of the couples who had given them a place to stay when they’d first gotten to town, Lan Wangji is stepping up to the counter with bright red ears and Wei Ying hanging off his arm with a wide grin, a matching bright blush on his cheeks.

“Wangji,” Zichen greets quietly, and Xiao Xingchen is utterly charmed to see the painfully proper boy turn and give Zichen a tiny little bow.

“Song-Daozhang.”

“It’s good to see you. This is my partner Xiao Xingchen.”

Xiao Xingchen’s smile widens when Lan Wangji turns to him to give him a little bow of his very own. Such a gentleman!

“Xiao-Daozhang. This is my…Wei Wuxian.”

“It’s good to meet you both,” Xiao Xingchen says quickly - mostly out of some sort of pity for Wei Wuxian, who looks thoroughly overwhelmed to have been introduced as Lan Wangji’s. Full stop. “Zichen, do we have an extra bag from yesterday to give them?”

Wei Wuxian recovers quickly enough from his surprise and Xiao Xingchen chats away with him happily as he rings the boys up, Zichen quietly settling everything into the tote bag Lan Wangji is holding open on the countertop. When they’ve finished, Lan Wangji pays for everything (he’s surprisingly suave), calm in the face of Wei Wuxian’s whining protests (that he voices around helpless smiles anyway), and then they’re gone again just like that, taking their happy noise and a bit of Xiao Xingchen’s wistful nostalgia for his own early relationship days with them.

“I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of them,” Zichen soothes quietly as he returns to his book, attuned to Xiao Xingchen’s moods as usual. “They don’t seem like the ‘dinner and a movie’ type for dates. They’ll be back.”

“I’m sure you’re right, as usual,” Xiao Xingchen hums, happy all over again at the choices they’ve made that have led them here.

-/-

‘Partners,’ Song Zichen had said. Wei Wuxian turns that word over and over in his head as he walks beside Lan Wangji back down the grass-lined front walk, cicadas humming and buzzing in the trees around them where they hang low over the sidewalk and offer a bit of shelter from the sun.

“Hey Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian manages to force out when they’ve gone perhaps half a block, headed back towards the main square where they’d chained up their bikes outside the ice cream place they’re planning to grab something at before they head back to Jianghu.

“Mn.”

“When Song-Daozhang said Xiao-Daozhang is his ‘partner’ he meant like. Business partners, right?”

Lan Wangji turns to blink at him, beautiful and ethereal as always in the gently dappled sunlight. It’s late enough in the afternoon that the heat has reached its final crescendo before it’ll hopefully begin cooling off as the sun starts to dip down to the west, and the air is still enough that the leaves overhead barely rustle at all. Some stray finger of a breeze gently lifts a strand of Lan Wangji’s hair from where it’s just barely caught against the crook of his neck and gently nudges it behind his shoulder. Wei Wuxian is startled to discover he’s capable of being jealous of the wind for getting to be the one to do that.

“I do not believe so. Not only.”

“Oh?” It comes out a bit more breathless than Wei Wuxian would like but hey, cut the guy some slack, he’s staring at a boy who could be a supermodel and trying not to freak out about the fact that Lan Fucking Wangji, his beautiful best friend and perpetual crush, is apparently cool and fine with talking about gay people. Just like that.

Lan Wangji turns his head just enough to glance over Wei Wuxian’s shoulder in the direction of the house-turned-record store, his face warming up slightly in the way that Wei Wuxian likes best, because it means Lan Wangji is happy.

“The bottom floor of the house was converted for the store. The top floor contains only one bedroom. Song-Daozhang outbid Uncle for the antique queen-size bed frame from the master bedroom at the estate auction when he bought the house. I do not believe they are only business partners.”

Wei Wuxian blinks and lets his brain fly ahead at its usual hundred miles an hour down the train track of that thought, bound for its inevitable, glorious crash of a conclusion into the side of his mountainous crush for the perfect boy in front of him.

“Hey. Hey Lan Zhan. You want to do something like that one day too, right? Have a house, collect and sell the kind of stuff you like, have a…a partner. To do it with. Right?”

Lan Wangi’s gaze is suddenly red-hot against his cheek where Wei Wuxian is refusing to look directly at him, for fear of losing his nerve completely.

“Mn.”

“You know, I think that sounds pretty great too! We could um. We should do that. The house. The shop. Um. Antiques…’Partners’. Hey!” Wei Wuxian yelps as Lan Wangji grabs his wrist so tightly his fingers overlap each other over the bone and he can’t help but laugh through his protests as he’s dragged bodily off the sidewalk and in between two trees so old there’s barely any space at all between their overgrown trunks for the two of them without squeezing close.

Lan Wangji kisses him there, sandwiched between two towering oak trees with the dizzy rush of his pounding pulse and thrumming cicadas in his ears. Wei Wuxian throws his arms around Lan Wangji’s shoulders and kisses him back with all the sloppy enthusiasm to be expected of his first ever kiss, though Lan Wangji doesn’t seem to mind too much judging by the way he’s got Wei Wuxian backed up hard enough against the tree that he’s pretty sure the bark will leave a strawberry pink impression in his skin until dinnertime.

Another faint gasp of a breeze slips between them, cooling fevered cheeks. This time Wei Wuxian gives in and follows its path with his hands, dragging careful fingers through the silken fall of Lan Wangji’s hair to pull it all aside, bunched into a tail in one hand, just so he can make Lan Wangji shiver with the brush of his free hand feather-light against the sweat-damp nape of his neck.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji breathes. It sticks to his smiling lips, tacky and warm from the press of Lan Wangji’s beloved mouth against his.

“Yeah Lan Zhan?”

“Brother and Uncle are at the shop until 8 tonight for inventory...”

Wei Wuxian grins and slides his hand all the way down from Lan Wangji’s neck to skim over his shoulders, stroke down the graceful arch of his spine, only to find its home right in the back pocket of his trousers.

“Oh yeah?” he teases with a shameless grope that makes Lan Wangji glare at him. This close, mouths still brushing, it heats Wei Wuxian up faster than if they’d suddenly stepped right into the late-summer sun beating down on the middle of the street a few yards away. “Wanna take me home, Lan Zhan?” Wei Wuxian lets the question linger for a long moment before he can’t resist nipping at the inviting curve of Lan Wangji’s bottom lip. “Got any whipped cream or other delights?”

Wei Wuxian can’t help but cackle so loudly it bounces back off the houses around them when Lan Wangji flushes a deep red from his ears down his neck and yanks away to pull him back out from between the trees, forcing him to stumble back out onto the sidewalk so they can walk as quickly as possible back to their bikes. Lan Wangji doesn’t answer, but Wei Wuxian just cheerfully tells himself that that means it’s not a ‘no’ either, and he happily bypasses the ice cream shop in favor of going back to the Lan house as quickly as possible.

(The Lans do, surprisingly, have a bright red can of Original Reddi-Wip in their immaculately organized fridge, but apparently no amount of pouting and wheedling will convince Lan Wangji to use it for anything fun. Wei Wuxian doesn’t mind though - making out with his newly-minted boyfriend is plenty fun without it, and he’s confident in his ability to wear down his resolve and get him to try it eventually. They’ve got plenty of time together stretching out ahead of them, after all, and in the sweet heat of summer nothing feels impossible.)

-/-

(The scandalous cover in question - 10/10 recommend, it's a great album!)

[nixrainewrites]

'You Really Are Shameless'

'Cloud Recesses Era'

"And where the hell have you been ALL morning?" Jiang Cheng said.

Wei Wuxian comes prancing out of the Cloud Recesses Forest with 2 bunnies in his hand. He was covered in dirt.

"Nowhere."

Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow "So 'Nowhere' has rabbits now? Where did you even find them? Go put them back!"

"NO! I'm bringing them to someone." Wei Wuxian yelled.

"If by 'someone' you mean Lan Wangji, you can forget it. Don't give him any more reasons to hate you." Jiang Cheng said.

"Hate me? DO YOU KNOW WHERE HE IS? HAVE YOU SEEN HIM?" Wei Wuxian was frantic.

"Jesus Christ calm down, you get so worked up just by the mention of his name. Is this another prank? Why do you want to bother him so badly?" Jiang Cheng asked.

"Well duh, isn't that obvious?" Wei Wuxian answered with another question.

"No, no it's not!" Jiang Cheng barked.

"Because, he's the handsomest man in Gusu! He deserves these little fluff balls. Plus, he seemed to tolerate the last one I gave him! I told him I was gonna eat it! But instead, he took it away and started petting it! I think he kept it as a pet!" Wei Wuxian started to laugh.

"Hasn't he gotten in enough trouble because of you? Stop coming up with ideas to prank him! You're going to make me look bad" Jiang Cheng retorted, crossing his arms.

"But Lan Zhan said-" 

"Go put the rabbits back!"

"Fine..." He let the bunnies go and sits down and looks as though he's thinking really hard.

"You're going to stop pranking him, right?" Jiang Cheng asked a question, but it sounded more like a demand.

"Of course, of course!" Wei Wuxian said sarcastically while sitting on a rock, blowing the hair that was in his face with a humph- Holding his head up with one hand.

"You're already thinking of other ways to prank him, aren't you?" Jiang Cheng regrettably asked.

"Definitely."

"You Bisexual disaster! I'm not going to be pegged as your accomplice and get kicked out of the Cloud Recesses because you can't keep your dick in your pants. Keep your distance from me!" Jiang Cheng barked.

Wei Wuxian had his mouth gaping open in shock. "What? It's been in my pants!!" He huffed loud.

"I'm telling you; he hates you, and when you flirted with that chick yesterday, his eyebrow twitched!! Don't approach him unless you're actually serious." Jiang Cheng said.

"Oh come on I wasn't flirting with her! We were just having a good conversation, that's all." Wei Wuxian was oblivious.

"Yeah well, I don't think HE knows that. You gotta get your shit together." Jiang Cheng said.

Wei Wuxian sees Lan Wangji in the distance, and he jumps up. He gravitated over to Lan Wangji like a magnet, forgetting about what Jiang Cheng just said. 

"Hey!! Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan! Oh wow Lan Zhan, look at you! You look as beautiful as refined Jade! The rarest of kinds!" Wei Wuxian smiled and hopped on his toes.

Lan Wangji flushed red. "Do not flirt with people if you have no intention of being serious." he starts walking away.

Wei Wuxian was taken back "But I was serious." he mumbled to himself as he ran off to trail behind Lan Zhan. He followed him all the way to class.

They attend class normally - mostly normal- except Wei Wuxian is flicking balls of paper at Lan Wangji from behind. Lan Zhan can't see who is doing it, but he's got a good idea. 

"Pssssst. Lan Zhan." Wei Wuxian whispered.

He was ignored.

Lan Qiren actually thinks Lan Wangji is the one making the racket this time- but it's actually Wei Wuxian - of course. Don't know how Wei Wuxian pulled that one over on Lan Qiren.

Lan Wangji has to talk to Lan Qiren after class, probably because he got in trouble in class due to Wei Wuxian- again.

Wei Wuxian slips off to the library pavilion in the meantime. He has finished writing the Lan rules, but he still comes here. Why? Because it's Lan Zhan's quiet place.

But this time - he decided now of all times, it's time to pull another classic prank.

Lan Wangji still hasn't shown up yet, so Wei Wuxian had time.

He carefully wrapped up all of Lan Wangji's desk supplies! Everything was wrapped in paper, and everything was taped down to something- taped to the desk- taped to the floor- things were tapped underneath the desk -taped to anything and everything. Not only that the paper he chose to use as wrapping paper was from a M/M erotica book~ 

Lan Wangji finally shows up and Wei Wuxian is hiding around the corner all he heard was -

"WEI YING!!"

A moment of silence passes, and Wei Wuxian does not come out.

"Wei Wuxian!!"

Ut-oh. Must do this quick.

"Surprise! Everything's a present!" Wei Wuxian jumps out with a failed attempt at a jump scare, arms flailing, laughing hysterically.

Lan Wangji pinches the bridge of his nose and tried to cover up his beating red face. "It's not funny."

Lan Wangji walks out flustered, unsure how to handle Wei Wuxian's chaos that confuses the shit out of him.

"Don't you like your present?!" Wei Wuxian runs after him.

He pestered him until days end asking which illustration was his favorite. 

"If you don't like your present, how about we try out one those fun looking positions? Maybe the one that's wrapping up the stapler currently?" Wei Wuxian teased and flicked under Lan Wangji's chin.

"You Really Are Shameless." Lan Wangji grabbed and kissed Wei Wuxian out of nowhere. 

//END//

You Really Are Shameless - NixRaine - 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù [Archive of Our Own]

[lansplaining]

I see the "Why didn't they just ask for help??" thing directed towards both JGY and WWX all the time and it's so frustrating lol like who were they supposed to ask? The "nice" people at Koi Tower knew what was happening to JGY and did nothing, and LXC was the sect leader of a different sect he couldn't exactly move in 😭 and the most anyone was offering WWX was "abandon the war refugees you've sworn to protect and come with me" which... isn't helpful?? Does nothing to solve his actual problem???

wouldn't it be nice!!!! it just asking for help was the solution to intractable social problems!!!

i mean this is the whole point of the amazing conversation between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, right? "i can help you, but it's conditional." and to be perfectly clear, I don't blame Jiang Cheng for this-- he's right, and Wei Wuxian knows it and is fine with it! he doesn't need to ask for help, he literally gets offered it (as does Wen Qing, in CQL) and says no to the terms attached.

and with JGY... i get it! man, i really get it. LXC doesn't seem like the type of person who could let someone he cares about suffer, so the problem has to be that JGY is hiding things from him. Yanli's entire personality is her kindness and generosity, surely if she knew how JGY was being treated right under her nose, she'd pull a "an insult to my brother is my problem" speech about it.

but LXC knows! he canonically knows what's going on, and tries to hint to NMJ about it (who didn't know but doesn't care). he and JGY have clearly come to a mutual understanding that there is no help LXC can realistically offer except to listen and to privately support him.

and I just... I can't believe Yanli doesn't know that JGY isn't allowed to hold her son. (alternately, she really doesn't, and she and Jin Zixuan are off in a world of their own to a staggering degree, which I also buy.) she grew up in a complex and toxic family dynamic with two boys pitted against each other, she knows what this looks like. and imo she knows that it's a situation she can't touch with a ten-foot pole. what makes her moment with Jin Zixun exciting is that, for her, it's an extraordinary and unprecedented act of social courage. it's not something she had ever managed before, and we don't see any evidence she ever manages it again. if you decide she is unaware (is it really possible she hasn't noticed that someone is doing all un-fun admin leadership work for the sect and it isn't the heir?), that isn't JGY's fault-- that's her and Jin Zixuan's own decision not to pay any attention to the dynamics of the sect they're going to lead someday. and if you decide she is-- well, she might be less right than LXC in thinking that there's nothing she can do-- she's married to someone who arguably could do something if he really tried, but that also really depends on how you imagine JZX and JGS's relationship-- but she also has way less reason to be emotionally invested and to take that risk.

(all of this goes for Jin Zixuan as well, but as empathy and kindness are emphatically not his central character traits, I think the idea of him not quite engaging with the situation mystifies people less)

[jgys-hat]

(Disclaimer: This is based on show canon as I haven’t read the book yet!)

I just...think about Nie Huaisang’s character development a lot... Does he ever think about and miss the person he used to be before his brother was killed and he started his years-long revenge plot, when he had people around him who cared for him? Does he resent JGY even more than he already did, for forcing his hand so that he became a cynical manipulator? And then when he kills JGY, that’s the person who effectively raised Jin Ling (alongside Jiang Cheng), who will now end up as leader of his clan before he’s ready, so does he ever think about the fact that he’s now inflicted on this poor kid something quite similar to what was done to him? Does he ever feel guilty about that aspect of it?

And how much more soul-crushing would it be to find out that JGY killed his brother, given that the two even lived under the same roof for some time, and the help JGY gave him after he became clan leader... That would just make you so much angrier. And I think he does have a lot of anger, he just expresses it differently from how his brother did - it’s a smouldering deep-down anger rather than an explosive outburst, but I think it’s still very much there. You’d have to be that angry to persevere for years with that plot, through the Fear that you could be found out at any moment... And he can’t even express it because he’ll end up risking everything he’s worked towards, he has to keep it hidden behind a mask and has nobody he can confide in, and has to spend years acting as the Headshaker when he’s actually been Changed completely.

Like...his quest for revenge ends up with him becoming more like the person he hated - especially as he has to become so adept at hiding his true feelings behind a mask - and it just makes me so sad for him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s perfectly aware of this himself, and is bitter about it. And then there’s the fact that after the whole thing, it’s likely the people who know what happened will find it really hard to trust him in the future - there’s always going to be the thought at the back of their minds of: “What if he’s plotting against me right now and I won’t even know it until ten years from now?” I don’t personally think he’d feel inclined to pull something like that again, but I think they would always be wondering... Especially Lan Xichen - you can tell from his face when NHS says “I don’t know” that last time that he’s not sure whether to believe him...

I would just really like to know more about what happens to him post-canon... I love him as a character so much, partly because every single thing about his life gets sadder the more you think about it. I wanted to cheer for him when he pulled off his plan, but at the same time I just think he really needs a hug :((( I want to imagine that eventually he finds some kind of happiness, because he deserves it after everything he goes through, but I think it would take a long time to get there, and there are a lot of things that would never wholly be made Right again. And... I think there would be an element of not quite knowing what to do with himself now he’s succeeded in what he’s set out to do, and no longer has the fear of discovery hanging over his head at all times. I think it would take a while to adjust to that.

[llycaons]

more commentary and excerpts from the spy AU!

first of all this is so much better and more interesting and funnier and more coherent and classier and more erotic and better written than the other historical spy fic set in a country where being gay was illegal and they went to the secret clubs. that gomens fic sucked so bad I thought I hated the entire setting and genre. but this rules. I'm on a rollercoaster of emotion. there's intrigue, drama, angst, secrets. and the characterizations are impeccable.

and this setting provides an opportunity for relationship dynamics that mirror canon in effective and believable ways. wwx getting the siblings out after they lose their home echoes their flight after the LP massacre - they ARE old money so fleeing to hk makes sense, and does myu dying in defiance. jyl being terrified of losing wwx, and wwx being ready to cut ties with the jiangs and go his own way is similarly painful to canon, though in this case it's because of the social and legal ramifications of homophobia rather than wwx's involvement in DC the dream sequence was really good! actually felt like a dream, was symbolic but not obnoxiously so, gave the reader new information, and tied back to canon themes and events

jyl and lwj's genuine budding friendship is so special :3 and I think the writer encapsulates how lwj is such an ethical and good person in ways that many other fics struggle to. jc is a doctor though which kind of shocks me I also find it kind of baffling that jc says some really cruel and hurtful things to wwx when they talk about him being gay like wwx is like 'this is none of your business' and jc is like 'you deserve to get caught' and in the end jyl calms him down and then considers it a good thing?? man I don't agree that wwx would have just forgiven that easily, that's a really horrible thing to say to someone

Tired down to his atoms, Wei Ying wonders if life had been easier back in the age of Mencius or some other ancient time. If the moral battles had been simpler, if conclusions on right and wrong were easier to reach. The times they’re living in now feel too complex. Anything he can think to say to Lan Zhan is insultingly insufficient.

the irony of an alternate universe version of wwx wondering if things had been easier when his canon storyline set in the ancient past was so painful and difficult and full of thorny moral considerations, his debt forever pulling him in different directions...

“What is?” They turn as one to see Jiang Cheng, beach bag in hand. “Uhhh…” Huaisang, whose lying ability hasn’t improved one iota in his years away, flails spectacularly.

SITS BOLT UPRIGHT. NHS A SPY??!!!! I guess he can secretly be just a good liar but any fic faithful to canon should have him unveil a few tricks up his sleeve...his true character is hidden the entire story, and it's fun when fic authors show him as he really is too instead of just the facade

It wouldn’t take much to get Yanli to agree to let them live in one of the rooms, and Wei Ying already has it picked out: the eastern-facing one, so Lan Zhan can spend his mornings in the sun... He even adds Zixuan to the fantasy for jiejie’s sake; he can be reading quietly in a corner, looking adoringly at Yanli while staying absolutely silent.

help

[winepresswrath]

People are deeply invested in the relative morality of these fictional magical war criminals. I once got a TON of shit for suggesting that I don't think WWX's reaction to learning that JC uses corporal punishment with JL would necessarily be to flip out and end their relationship, or even necessarily be upset as long as JC wasn't whipping the kid with Zidian or whatever. (I do not think JC hits JL but it would be considered normal if he was. This is Ancient Fantasy China! No one's calling CPS!

Wei Wuxian seems perfectly happy to continue having a relationship with the cloud recesses, the place where corporal punishment is most explicitly normalized within the narrative. I don't think it's a coincidence that we don't see that form of punishment being used with the juniors, but I also really don't think they've reversed their stance on physical discipline in the last 13/16 years. Man, I don't know. I think the morality of these characters is so much fun to overanalyze! It drives both the plot and a big chunk of the character conflict! The various moral traps everyone is always falling into that force them to make choices with no good outcomes is one of the best and most fun parts of the whole story. "When there is no good outcome, what bad outcome do you choose " is a great question to make your characters answer. "This Character Is Bad and Everyone Who Likes Him is Wrong" is just not a way of engaging with this text that sparks joy in me, and I lose nothing when I put it in the trash.

[ghooostbaby]

deeeep dive into why and how wei wuxian and lan wangji love each other, complete each other, are the inverse reflection of each other’s deeply hidden internal selves mirrored through the other’s external self, lan wangji’s inner wildness that he has to conceal and protect recognizing and loving wei wuxian’s outer wildness, wei wuxian’s deep, fuddy-duddy morality and values that he conceals with an elaborate subterfuge of jokes, mischief, and bravado, seeing and loving in lan wangji the ability to say no that it was never safe for him to express directly, “between you and me there is no need for thank you and sorry”

oh and a slight diversion midway through into a manifesto on WEI WUXIAN IS NOT INSECURE the whole story is about a society where being liked is ESSENTIAL for survival and it is actually completely perilous not to be liked, and his “people pleasing” is a skill and tool for his survival especially as an orphan and proven to be a necessary one when he stops doing it and STOPS SURVIVING

after the cut discussing the very interesting dynamics of consent in general in the novel, but not going into the consensual non-consent kink stuff till the last paragraph if you need to avoid for any reason.

I've been thinking about how Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian the exterior, unfettered expression of the wildness Lan WangJi holds in him and protects with rigid codes of conduct, propriety and outward dignity.

I have had this sense that these two are mirrors, either one reflecting the hidden, interior (and unallowed) self of the other. but it seemed more clear from Lan WangJi's side, especially knowing about his history with his mother and the spicy side that emerges when he drinks and in the extras.

I also - just... the way this whole story shows how romantic love is truly this longing for your self, to become yourself, to become the thing you're not allowed to be, seeing in that person the expression of whatever it is you can't become and longing for it, protecting it, joining with it as closely as you can without ever being able to let it live inside your own body.

On the surface it seems a lot more difficult for Wei WuXian to find a piece of his soul in Lan Wangji. I think its a bit too simplistic to see whatever draws Wei WuXian to Lan Wangji as a reverse-psychology sort of craving of acceptance from the only one who won't give it, pushing and pushing against this impenetrable boundary that he needs to break to feel assurance that no matter what he can make anyone accept him.

And he is SO drawn - in a mind boggling way, in the teenage flashbacks Lan WangJi rudely and aggressively throws him off over and over and Wei WuXian cannot keep away! Even when he talks about how boring Lan WangJi is, he never stops trying to be around him and talk to him.

I've seen discussions of the way Wei WuXian has always relied on the goodwill of others to survive, and that his placating of others to survive is a character flaw. Although that seems only halfway true. 

As a young child he didn't have anyone's goodwill for a while and he survived, and it seems like he can always find a way to survive from whatever means and sometimes very limited resources he has at his disposal. Doing what he has to do to become powerful enough to survive losing his core and being thrown into the burial mounds slowly costs him the goodwill of everyone around him - and what happens to him as a result shows how much placation was a truly necessary for someone without the protection of biological/hereditary family bonds.

(Don’t get me started on how his loss of his golden core and his development of demonic cultivation to give himself power by ‘unnatural methods’ through the use of a musical instrument is a metaphor for disability and the way ableist society sees the use of accessibility devices and tools. Actually please DO get my started haha.)

Wei WuXian is so charismatic and seems very used to getting what he wants and needs on the strength of that. He pushes a lot of boundaries and seems pretty confident and flexibly prepared to handle the consequences, whether beatings or harsh words. But he does work so hard to make others feel good, good with him, good with themselves.

When he is in the cave with Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian is described as "like one who forgets all past pain as soon as the wound heals". He can't resist coming up beside Lan WangJi and talking to him again and again after every time Lan WangJi pushes him off, only finally staying away when Lan WangJi bites him (and he still keeps trying to talk to him after a little bit!) and then calls him an awful person (!!! Bad Wangji! :(((( ). In the end, when Lan WangJi (very minimally) discloses what happened to his sect and his father, and even cries, because of all the defences/assaults Lan WangJi has put up Wei WuXian can't do anything or say anything to help and feels miserable.

Lan WangJi just absolutely refuses to allow Wei WuXian to take care of him - and I began to wonder maybe that’s what Wei WuXian actually really likes about him? Why he is unable to resist coming up to Lan WangJi again and again? Maybe because Lan WangJi refuses to let Wei WuXian appease him. He’s not trying to crack Lan WangJi to get to this impenetrable place of approval and acceptance. In a way he can’t quite understand, Lan WangJi is a respite for Wei WuXian from the constant work to be the one who pleases.

And  how different this is to how Wei WuXian is (or has to be) with Jiang Cheng when he wakes up in Lotus Pier after the cave. Jiang Cheng gets so down and really really needs Wei WuXian to do what he does so well (and wasn’t allowed to do with Lan WangJi) - chasing Jiang Cheng down while being injured and reassuring him about all his insecurities about his father's acceptance and becoming a sect leader and Wei WuXian's own abilities excelling his - and at first Jiang Cheng is pushing him away, but he really does need Wei WuXian to do all this to feel better.

Wei WuXian is described as not wanting to be lonely, and not wanting to see other people unhappy, and he keeps trying to push and pull with whatever he has to not be lonely and lift the mood for those around him. I don't think it's a kind of codependency or insecurity. It’s not that Wei WuXian is afraid to say no, in fact I would say he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do, but he must always do it creatively, with humour. Similarly to Nie Huaisang, he uses a persona of foolishness to give himself a covert agency.

I also think I'm writing this because I don't like seeing this discussed as a sad bean character flaw for him to always need to be liked - its a strategy, its a tool, its how he survives and excels. Doesn’t the whole story prove how essential being liked is to a human’s survival? And he is so so good at being liked, in making others happy, even when he is refusing to do what others want from him that he doesn't want to do, he does it in a way that deflects criticism, with a smiling bravado that never says what it truly means and has people writing him off as shameless or foolish or just endearing himself toward them despite themselves.

He is always at work really, with jokes and flattery or mischief and teasing, to get the resources he wants and needs. Case and point, when he makes a big coquettish show for mianmian, definitely not being "people pleasing" for her, but the group of girls around them all find it funny and cute and in the end she gives him a perfume sachet which ends up being a valuable resource for later. Or the time he outright tells Jiang Cheng that if you give the girls some lotus seeds they'll remember you and return the favour in the future. (Also notice how his interactions with girls seen as flirtatious are actually strategic resource-gathering acts.) These are the skills he has developed to meet his own needs. (THIS IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW. I REPEAT.) He takes what he needs and steals from the Lotus Pier markets knowing it'll be paid for, he lives like he never know when his next windfall will come from so he'll take what he can when he can find it. Like Jiang Fengmian said, if there is no guarantee of a meal in the future then today's meal should still be enjoyed. It’s how Wei WuXian said to Nie Huaisang at Cloud Recesses, you have to find ways to make your own fun out of whatever you have. So he gets kicked out of class, goes fishing, gets alcohol, he pursues his own pleasure. He actually is quite insistent of his own agency and right to choose, he just can never directly say no.

And that little detail that Wei WuXian always tucks coins into his clothes just in case, that makes him able to buy food when he and Jiang Cheng are on the run... breaks my heart and reveals so much about the way Wei WuXian is constantly at work on ensuring his own survival and never takes for granted whether he is safe (he knows he never is). 

I've seen some people talking about Wei WuXian sacrificing so much for his brother and sister out of a need to be accepted out of a chronic sense of insecurity. But isn’t this just true? Doesn't he live in a world where being accepted is absolutely essential for survival? Doesn’t this whole story show the cruelty of a social system based on networks of hereditary/biological family that closes out and scapegoats any outsiders, and that without biological family connections that can enclose around you, you can never truly be safe if not constantly working to earn acceptance? (And then beautifully ends with the way a gay romantic relationship that queers marriage/family/etc disrupts all this and creates safety and inclusion for Wei WuXian without needing a normative family.) (AKA romantic love does not resolve some internal personal problem in Wei WuXian but disrupts and refuses and rebels against the problem of SOCIETY.) (*breathes heavily*)

And that’s why Lan WangJi is magnetizing to Wei WuXian. Lan WangJi is always saying no. Although what Lan WangJi sees in Wei WuXian is an exterior wildness, Wei WuXian is not really out of control so much as he is playing and caring and supplicating and showing off and pleasing people to get the resources and the acceptance he needs to live his life. He has firm values and desires that he can never outwardly state, only creatively spinning plates to distract and deflect while he refuses what goes against his values, protects who he cares for, or takes what he needs to in order to survive/thrive. Lan WangJi embodies an exterior of resoluteness and direct agency that Wei WuXian doesn't have the luxury of. And he's so drawn to him for his ability to repeatedly say no, to refuse to get along, or make others laugh, make other people happy, but just simply follow what he thinks is right.

Wei WuXian’s outward wild movement protects an inward stillness. He is an exterior of people-pleasing around an interior of refusal. He is an exterior of youthful rebellion around an interior of unflinching morality. He sees in Lan WangJi the outward expression of his stillness, his morality, his resistance that he can't express, that he's had to protect.

FYI after the cut gets more into the dynamics of consent in the story, and the last paragraph directly talks about consensual non-consent kink play in wangxian’s relationship.

When Wei WuXian is with Lan WangJi, there is no work to be done. Lan WangJi cannot be swayed by him, and so there's no point vying for resources or favors. Lan WangJi will either give him everything or refuse him everything based on who he is, it does not matter what Wei WuXian does and he can't do anything that will change Lan WangJi’s mind. Someone he literally can't win over. After the resurrection, they are often in an adorable tug of war, where Wei WuXian tries to take care of Lan WangJi, while Lan WangJi won't allow him to but demands to care of Wei WuXian right back. Actually, Lan WangJi insists that Wei WuXian take everything he wants or needs from him and is even angry when he doesn't take or when Wei WuXian tries to offer a gesture in return, even something as simple as a thank you Lan WangJi won't accept. It’s kind of adorable how frustrated Wei WuXian is in doing this thing he's learned that he needs to do, and just... so confused by Lan WangJi, and has to find a way to please this person who aggressively refuses to be pleased and is ONLY pleased by Wei WuXian being pleased.

(Not to mention the way Wei WuXian delights in finding that Lan WangJi can’t say what he wants, and they have sort of these chaotic cohesive both-being-so-pleased-by-working-hard-to-please each-other moments where Wei WuXian is letting Lan WangJi please him by finding out what pleases Lan WangJi and giving it to him.)

The wildness Lan WangJi had always hidden within himself is something he sees as just as dangerous as Wei WuXian thinks of his desire to refuse. He saw his mother be socially alienated, shunned, and eventually die because of her wildness. His ability to survive in the world, aka to be accepted by his family, is contingent on him being able to control this inner wildness. From a young age (re: Phoenix Mountain kiss) he could only understand his sexual desires for Wei WuXian as something repulsive or dangerous that had to be repressed and controlled, and that the only way he could imagine his desires as possible was as non-consensual. His secret gay desires were never available to him as anything but something monstrous.

Importantly, it’s not like everyone else other than Lan WangJi are all vampires cruelly demanding Wei WuXian’s constant sacrifice. Wei WuXian is always vibrantly, charismatically offering so much, before anyone has asked. It’s Wei WuXian who creates this kind of relationship for himself again and again. It’s Lan WangJi who simply refuses - he refuses to charmed, to be cared for. And so in the end Lan WangJi becomes the one person who Wei WuXian feels doesn't need anything from him. When he says he's eating the corpse's fruit to save Lan WangJi money and Lan WangJi says that will never be necessary. Or when Wei WuXian asks what toy he should win for Lan WangJi at the market game, and Lan WangJi says anything Wei WuXian gets will be the one he wants. (XD stahhhhp it’s too sweet !!!) He really just wants Wei WuXian to be, to exist, to spend his life discovering his own desires and allow Lan WangJi to help satisfy them, he doesn't want anything from Wei WuXian other than him living - happy and safe.

It takes someone like Lan WangJi to refuse Wei WuXian’s aggressive generosity, it��s definitely not an easy thing to say no to Wei WuXian, dazzling or annoying people so chaotically before they even realize there’s something to say no to. The sacrifice he gives to Jiang Cheng, he never even offers a choice - and perhaps it would have been too much for Jiang Cheng to accept if he had the chance.

Lan WangJi’s statement "Between us there is no need for thank you and sorry" seems like one of the most important sentences in the novel, and you can’t help but noticed the way “sorry” and “thank you” is littered meaningfully through the book. What is owed, what the characters owe to each other, the give and take, touches every part of the story (down to wangxian's erotic explorations!).

When Jiang Cheng talks to Wei WuXian at the Guanyin temple he makes a lot of contradictory statements about what Wei WuXian owes, what he was given, what he took, what he (Wei WuXian still) is owed in return. Wei WuXian, according to Jiang Cheng, took everything from the Jiang clan, and paid them back with their deaths. The Jiang clan give him his life when they took him in, and he owed Jiang Cheng service for the rest of his life as the right hand to the sect leader, that’s what Wei WuXian had promised anyway. At the same time, Wei WuXian sacrificed everything (his golden core) to Jiang Cheng, by giving everything he was taking one more thing - Jiang Cheng’s right to even be angry at him. Jiang Cheng had taken everything from Wei WuXian. Everything that happened around Wei WuXian after could be said to be because of the loss of his golden core, which Jiang Cheng might be said to be responsible for. But he never asked for it, maybe he never would have wanted it. He wishes Wei WuXian told him, but Jiang Cheng never told Wei WuXian his golden core was melted while he was sacrificing himself to save Wei WuXian. He wants Wei wuxian to say sorry, but that makes him feel pathetic. And Jiang Cheng says sorry too. It’s a mess of paradoxes, and in the end somehow it seems like the scales are balanced in the most hollow, dismal way.

What is owed, what is given, what is taken ... Wei WuXian has never been part of a family. He has always had to say thank you and sorry for everything he's taken. Wei WuXian himself admits that he used "thank you" as a way to enforce distance between himself and Lan WangJi. Lan WangJi's point i think is that they belong to each other, Wei WuXian is his, and he is Wei WuXian's, unconditionally. The way that Jiang Cheng speaks of him in the Guanyin temple (admittedly I read a fan translation and this is very nuanced, related to slight variations of grammar), even when Jiang Cheng clearly is so broken by the loss of Wei WuXian from his life, he talks about Wei WuXian as an outsider. It is what MY family gave to YOU, never what you took from our family. But at one point Wei WuXian was part of their family - but he takes too much, and becomes an ex-disciple, not a brother. Wei WuXian’s inclusion as a Jiang was always conditional. 

Even when Wen Qing and Wen Ning leave him to go take the blame for qiongqing path they tell him "thank you and sorry", drawing a line between them and him, so he doesn’t even belong to these people who he sacrificed everything for. The way Wei WuXian acted when he was younger, he was always keenly aware of this - he always knew that he didn’t belong to anyone, no one is going to protect him unconditionally. And after first escaping the Burial Mounds, he is done pretending. When Lan WangJi warns him about what a demonic cultivation path will do to his heart, Wei WuXian replies: “After all, on the topic of how my heart is, what could other people know about it? Why should other people care about it?” He is done pleasing. Nothing has changed really, he still belongs to no one and is alone, but now he is angry about it, and instead of saying thank you and sorry he is going to become too powerful to be at anyone's mercy. And then we see in the story afterward what happens to people who don't say thank you and sorry.

The whole point I think is the impossibility of choice, the impossibility of consent in this society. If he didn't forgo the behaviour his social acceptance was conditional on, he wouldn't have survived the burial mounds. But once he becomes powerful enough to survive and get revenge on the Wens, he is socially outcast. Except he was already outcast from the beginning.

And so how do Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi find a way through all that to a life together where all their desires are possible, where Wei WuXian can say no while also being pleasing (safe) to others, and Lan WangJi can indulge in his wild desires while still being good? The answer is kinky sex!

It is kind of miraculous and beautiful how Wei WuXian finds a way to say no, while simultaneously pleasing Lan WangJi, giving pleasure, while taking it, saying no, and knowing his refusal is not just tolerated, but gives Lan WangJi pleasure, knowing Lan wangji and knowing the painful belief Lan WangJi holds within that his desires are unacceptable and unspeakable, and that Wei WuXian can take care of Lan Wangji in a secret little way and please him and give everything to him by craving this wildness in Lan WangJi while at the same time he gets to say no again and again , and it won't push Lan WangJi away, he can refuse everything while at the same time be totally pleasing and thus safe, and also for Lan WangJi, Wei WuXian's pleasure at saying "no" while still being held onto, that he genuinely wants to be fucked even while begging Lan WangJi to stop (and the many ways he does give his consent for this throughout, especially their first time), allows Lan WangJi the ecstatic feeling that this idea that his sexual desires are only possible through force are not just something his lover forgives him for but something his lover is SO turned on by, and that he has consent for his fantasies of non-consent, Wei WuXian has the same fantasies from the other side, he is doing what he is supposed to while doing what he shouldn't, and actually these monstrous feelings in him allow him to take care of Wei WuXian in a way that he needs - that they both need - and all these impulses that are so wrong with Wei WuXian become very right and a way to do good. And they are just both so perfect and perfect for each other and I love them and I am so happy for them to have a long kinky life together.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt~ hoping you'll like it ♥️

Things between the Nie brothers are not always nice and happy, they fight, just like any other pair of brothers, and sometimes things are said, sometimes these things are heavy and painful. Sometimes they're said in the wrong moment (maybe at the eve of a battle? Sunshot campaign?) and huaisang doesn't know what to do with the broken look his brother gives him before leaving the unclean realm. Because what if he doesn't return? What if the last thing he said to him was how much he hated the man he became?

Labyrinth - ao3

“But I didn’t mean to wish him away!” Nie Huaisang cried out.

“That’s really too bad,” the goblin king said, looking pleasant and humble and charming the way he always did, even in his cape of glittering gold and high-browed hat. “I wish there was something I could do for you, but the rules are the rules. You wished him away, and I took him.”

“Aren’t you supposed to only take babies?” Nie Huaisang demanded.

“Your brother’s enough of a crybaby to count, it’s close enough.”

“It is not!” Nie Huaisang wrung his hands. “You don’t understand, the last thing I said to him was that I hated him! Meng Yao, please!”

“It’s Jin Guangyao,” the goblin king corrected. His smile looked a bit strained. “Listen, do you think I’m happy about this? He’s my sworn brother! I’m only doing what I have to –”

“Oh, save it for Lan Xichen,” Nie Huaisang growled. “Show me the labyrinth already.”

“You’re going to face the labyrinth,” the goblin king said. His voice was very polite, and yet still expressed significant doubt. “You.”

“Yeah, me!”

“You remember that it goes ‘through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered’, right? Not ‘through a nice teacher and a forgiving grading system’?”

“Yeah, well, your father is a fragging aardvark. Let me at the labyrinth already!”

-

“You know what,” Nie Huaisang said thoughtfully. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

The life-sized animated puppet blinked at him. “You – don’t want my help?”

“Nope. I’m good.”

“You haven’t even gotten into the labyrinth yet!”

“It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t have a chance to get in,” Nie Huaisang said, patting around his sleeve and pulling out a fan. “So I’m just going to walk over and beat at the wall till something happens.”

The puppet followed him, staring blankly. Quite a change from his original apologetic ‘I’m sorry, I’m busy with my own things, I really can’t help you, also it’s too dangerous and you shouldn’t go’ response.

“You were blackmailing me to help you just a moment ago,” the puppet said after a little. “Don’t you need a guide?”

“Listen, I’m bad at memorizing things and I’m a little useless, but I’m not actually dumb,” Nie Huaisang said, fanning himself. “Jin Guangyao is a demon of the mind above all else, and the labyrinth is supposed to be ‘fair’ – which means, more than likely, that the labyrinth is a reflection of the subconscious, specially tailored to each person’s strengths and weaknesses. And that means that you, who sound exactly like Lan Xichen, are almost certainly a set-up sent by Jin Guangyao to ‘reluctantly’ aid me and then betray me.”

“Uh,” Lan Xichen-the-puppet said. “My name’s Hoggle, actually.”

“Whatever makes you feel better, er-ge…A-ha!” Nie Huaisang beamed at the gates that automatically opened. “Perfect!”

-

“Oh, don’t go that way,” the worm said. “Never go that way. And are you sure you don’t want to come in for a cup of tea?”

“No time,” Nie Huaisang said. “Thanks a lot – wait.”

The worm blinked at him.

“You’re a pretty attractive worm, in a slimy sort of way,” Nie Huaisang said, frowning at him.

The worm blinked again. “Why, thanks!”

“No, that’s not what I meant. Is your name Su She, by chance?”

“Definitely not!”

“Mm. Oddly vehement of you. Never mind. Just, quick, could you tell me exactly why do I not want to go that way?”

-

“I don’t suppose straight ahead is an option?”

The hands-faces stared at him.

“I’m just saying, I feel like most of my problems so far have come from the fact that I decided to accept the whole concept of turns. It seems like a mistake.”

“…it’s a labyrinth,” another set of the hands said. “You have to make turns!”

Nie Huaisang shook his head mournfully. “I should’ve brought Baxia or something and just – ZIP. Gone straight through. You know what I mean?”

“I’m dropping you in the oubliette regardless of your decision,” the first set of the hands said. It sounded a bit like Sect Leader Yao. “Just so you know.”

“My life is so hard,” Nie Huaisang sighed. “So hard! Do you know what it’s like to be overlooked by everyone? Do you know how hard I have to work at being this useless?”

“Drop him,” the set of hands that sounded like Sect Leader Ouyang said, and the set of hands that sounded like Sect Leader Yao said, “Yes. Now!”

Down Nie Huaisang went.

-

“I can take you back to the beginning of the labyrinth,” Lan Xichen offered.

“What, and waste all that time? I have a time limit, er-ge!”

“It’s better than being stuck in an oubliette. That’s where they put people to forget about them, you know.”

Nie Huaisang’s eyes filled with tears. “You want to forget me, er-ge? You think I’m useless, don’t you? A good-for-nothing, who’ll never amount to anything –”

“Please don’t cry.”

“ER-GE! WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME!”

“Please stop crying!”

-

“So what’s the point of you?” Nie Huaisang asked the Wise Man with the Talking Hat.

“Not everyone exists to contribute to your storyline,” the Talking Hat snapped at him. “Some of us’ve got our own problems. Now hand over the candy!”

“Don’t be mean,” the Wise Man said. He had a white cloth over his eyes, and was smiling like he found the hat funny.

“Awww, but daozhang…!”

“Different plotline entirely, I guess,” Nie Huaisang decided. “Probably just here as a foil. Shall we keep going, er-ge?”

“I can’t believe you scammed me to get out of the oubliette,” Lan Xichen mumbled. “I can’t believe…”

-

“Oh, leave him alone, he’s just sensitive!” Nie Huaisang snapped.

“Am not!” the upside-down creature snarled, curled up on itself and trying to hide from all those that had been hitting him. Its fur was a vivid sort of purple. “Go away!”

“Don’t you have some sort of special power to help you here,” Nie Huaisang asked him as he tried to get him down before the goblins came back with weapons. “Rocks, maybe?”

“…lightning?”

“Well then get to it, will you?” Nie Huaisang frowned. “Wait. Lightning, constantly being tormented, terrible at communication, and purple? You’re Jiang Cheng, aren’t you?”

“…maybe.”

“Well then get down faster! I need to copy someone’s notes here!”

-

“Leave me aloooooooone!” Nie Huaisang howled, running away from the measuring snake.

-

“Wow,” Lan Xichen said, holding his cheek. “You kissed me.”

“You saved me from the snakes,” Nie Huaisang said. “Can we focus on how we’re in this awful stinking bog?”

“It’s not that bad!” a voice piped up. “I don’t smell anything!”

Nie Huaisang turned to stare, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course you don’t,” he said. “I bet the total absence of a sense of smell helps when you eat spicy food, Wei-xiong.”

“There’s nothing wrong with spicy food!”

“You’re short,” Nie Huaisang informed the small goblin-like creature with the big grin and the red ribbon in its hair. It looked vaguely fox-like, or possibly like certain large breeds of rabbit.

“Why you..!” Wei Wuxian crossed his furry little paws over his chest. “Just for that, I’m not going to help you.”

“Uh-huh,” Nie Huaisang said. “Really. That’s awful…oh no! A dog!”

Wei Wuxian jumped high into the air. “A dog?! Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan! Save me!”

Much to Nie Huaisang’s surprise, a furry dog immediately darted out of nowhere – only Wei Wuxian didn’t seem afraid of it, but rather hid behind it, teeth chattering.

Truly, Nie Huaisang reflected, the eyes of love are blind.

“I think the ‘dog’ is gone now,” he said. “Your brave and noble Lan Wangji must’ve scared him away.”

Wei Wuxian’s head popped out from behind dog-Wangji. “Well, Lan Zhan is really cool…hey. Are you trying to manipulate me?”

“Is it working?”

“No!”

“So you won’t help me?”

“No!”

“Not even if it means you get to figure out a really tricky puzzle?”

“No – wait. A puzzle?”

“I can’t believe this is going to work,” Lan Xichen muttered from behind Nie Huaisang. “I mean, I can. But also…Wangji…I love you, but you could do so much better than this.”

-

“Ugh,” Nie Huaisang said. “I’m so thirsty.”

“Have some Emperor’s Smile,” Lan Xichen said, offering a jar.

“Amazing,” Nie Huaisang said, accepting it and taking a swing. “I had my doubts, you know, but you’re actually good for something after all, er-ge –”

-

The golden bird was Nie Huaisang’s favorite.

He’d worked so hard to bring it back to his aviary – it couldn’t be forced, he knew; it would play along at first but in the end it would turn on you and bite you. It had to be coaxed with gentleness and kindness, approached indirectly so as not to spook it, convince it that you really did mean well – that you were harmless, that it had no reason to fear you. It was arrogant, too, proud of its shining feathers and ashamed of the brown plumage of its chick days, which still remained visible on its tender underbelly. Ironically, that was Nie Huaisang’s favorite part of it, the soft and gentle part; it might not be as pretty as the gold, but it felt more genuine.

Nie Huaisang smiled as he brushed the beautiful feathers, and the golden bird allowed him. He felt cherished, treasured. So what if he had to hide all the sharp parts of himself to get this close?

It was fine. He didn’t like to be sharp.

He wanted to be soft. Soft and gentle, careless and free, relaxed and without effort, good for nothing –

Wait.

No!

-

“It’s all junk,” Nie Huaisang hissed at the pile of burning fans, tears in his eyes. “I want my da-ge!”

-

“You’re all right!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed, helping pulled Nie Huaisang up.

“Huaisang-xiong,” Jiang Cheng said, looking relieved. “You’re back.”

“We have to go to the temple beyond the Goblin City,” Nie Huaisang said, teeth gritted together. “We have to. I won’t let that bastard…we’re going to go there and throw all his damned tricks right in his face!”

“Just us?” Wei Wuxian asked. “I mean, I’m awesome, Lan Zhan is fantastic, and of course Jiang Cheng is great, too, but…uh…there’s a lot of goblins in the city.”

“We’ll sneak in,” Nie Huaisang said. “He thinks he’s sidelined me entirely – he thinks I’m useless. He won’t be expecting me to get this far.”

“I can get help,” Jiang Cheng said. “I have friends.”

“…not to be rude, Jiang-xiong,” Nie Huaisang said. “But – really?”

-

“You know what,” Nie Huaisang said, eyeing the pile of rocks following Jiang Cheng around, each one painted with a name. One of the names was yellow. Two were in white, with forehead ribbons. “This is fine. I feel like it says something really rude about my empathy for and interest in our junior generation, or lack thereof, but you know what? I don’t care. It’s fine.”

-

“You saved me,” Nie Huaisang said blankly, looking at Lan Xichen, who shrugged, abashed. The remains of the mechanical temple guard were scattered all over. “Over – him?”

“Huaisang –”

“No,” Nie Huaisang said, holding up his hands. “Don’t. Don’t…I don’t want to hear you talk.”

Lan Xichen’s head dropped down and he looked at the ground. “You knew from the beginning what I was like,” he murmured. “I never tried to hide it –”

“I forgive you for being what you are,” Nie Huaisang told him, and Lan Xichen looked up at him, startled and pleased. “I forgive you for not having the backbone to stand up against Jin Guangyao for me – or for da-ge. For being willfully blind for so long, for needing someone else’s proof of his ill-intentions, for always picking him first, for never trusting me…I forgive you, even if you’d never forgive me for the same.”

He dashed away the angry tears in his eyes.

“I just wish this wasn’t a fucking metaphor.”

-

Nie Huaisang left the fighting to the people who knew what to do – Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng, even the rock-juniors – and went to the temple at the center of the city alone.

Some things, he knew, needed to be done alone, even if it was the type of alone when you were surrounded by other people. Even when those other people stood by his side and made him promise that if he needed them, he would only need to call. Some things…

“I want my da-ge back,” he said to the maze of stairs.

“Then go and find him,” Jin Guangyao replied, looking smug, and Nie Huaisang had to go up and down all those fucking stairs, because Jin Guangyao was nothing if not predictable with his trauma, looking all over, looking for –

Looking for pieces.

“It’s just a metaphor,” he whispered to himself, ignoring how tears were streaming down his face. “It’s just – I need to put him back together, it’s fine. I’m not too late – I’m not too late –”

-

Jin Guangyao held Nie Mingjue’s head in his hands, blinded and gagged and bound with talismans, pulled out of whatever oubliette he'd shoved it into to forget about what he'd done. “Beware, Huaisang,” he said, still smiling. Always smiling. “I’ve been generous up until now, but I can be cruel.”

Nie Huaisang laughed, scoffing. “Generous? What have you done for me that’s generous?”

“Everything! Everything you’ve wanted, I’ve done – I cared for you, I gave you attention, I got you out of work, doing your schoolwork for you and coming up with excuses to get you out of saber training. I gave you presents, fans and pretty clothing, and when that brute of a brother of yours tried to take them from you, I rescued you. And then I even managed your sect for you, answered all of your questions, any time you had – Huaisang, I’m exhausted trying to live up to your expectations of me. Isn’t that generous?”

Nie Huaisang bared his teeth. “Half of those are burdens that only fell on me because of you. Why should it matter to me that cleaning up your own mess and satisfying your own guilt is hard? Why should I pay such a price when all I wanted was to be your friend? When all da-ge wanted was to be your friend? How dare you, Meng Yao!”

“Huaisang…” Jin Guangyao shook his head mournfully. “Huaisang, the last step here is to say the words to break the spell. But you were never good at memorization, were you?”

Nie Huaisang bit his lip until he drew blood.

“Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered,” he said. “I have fought my way here to the temple beyond the goblin city –”

“Huaisang, stop! Look at what you’re risking here. You know how everyone loves me – do you think anyone will forgive you for taking me down, for tricking them all? You’ll be all alone!”

I already am, Nie Huaisang thought.

“My will is as strong as yours,” he said. “And my kingdom is as great…”

His voice trailed off.

“I ask for so little,” Jin Guangyao said beseechingly, convincingly, looking just like he always did, like the man who'd been their friend. “Just let me fool you, and you can have anything you want. No responsibilities, no stress, a life of your own. You can even have Lan Xichen, if that’s what you want…”

What’s the last line, Nie Huaisang thought, hating himself for being such a poor student, for cramming things into his mind without any order, for never being able to retain a single drop of it no matter how hard he tried. What is it? Why can’t I ever remember?

“It’d be so easy,” Jin Guangyao crooned. “Much easier than this. Just fear me, love me, believe me, and I’ll be your slave.”

Sharp teeth in a false smile.

Nie Huaisang shook in terror. He couldn’t – his da-ge needed him – he couldn’t be afraid, couldn’t be a coward, couldn’t be good-for-nothing – couldn’t let Jin Guangyao win – couldn’t let him –

That was it.

Nie Huaisang raised his head until his eyes met his enemy’s.

Sensing something wrong, Jin Guangyao’s eternal smile dimmed, and he began to step forward, reaching out, but it was too late.

“You have no power over me,” Nie Huaisang declared, and the world within a world collapsed.

-

Nie Huaisang opened his eyes.

-

Nie Huaisang sat in his desk in the Unclean Realm, trying to amuse himself by trying to figure out what exactly he’d eaten the night before that had given him such bizarre dreams. It was not successful, on account of him being alone.

Alone, just as he had been every night, and every day as well, since the success of his scheme at the Guanyin Temple.

Just as the dream-Jin Guangyao had threatened.

It wasn’t that Nie Huaisang regretted what he had done – the dream was clear enough about that; he’d do it all again in a heartbeat if he had to. But in the dream he’d been working alongside his former friends, with Lan Xichen betraying but then returning to him, with Wei Wuxian dragging Lan Wangji around, with stone-faced Jiang Cheng and the rather interchangeable junior squad behind him…and in his dream, in the end, they’d let him go to take his revenge, telling him that if he needed them for any reason, he could just call.

Just call, and they’d come back to him. Instead of turning from him in disgust, they’d stand by his side…

“Stupid subconscious,” Nie Huaisang mumbled to himself. “What do you expect? That I'd write to them and say ‘for no real reason at all, I find that I rather need you’?”

Silence answered him.

“Well, I do,” he said with a sigh, putting his chin on his hands. “Does that make you happy? I do need you.”

“You do?” Wei Wuxian’s voice rang out, and Nie Huaisang jumped nearly out of his skin. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”

Nie Huaisang turned, staring: it was Wei Wuxian at the door, the human version of him, and of course there was Lan Wangji right before him, and Jiang Cheng, and the (still mostly interchangeable) juniors, and – and even Lan Xichen, who Nie Huaisang was sure had gone into seclusion with no intent to leave.

“What are you doing here?” Nie Huaisang squeaked. And why hadn’t any of his sect disciples warned him?

“We just bullied our way though the door before anyone could stop us,” Wei Wuxian said cheerfully, answering the unspoken question first. “As for the rest – it turns out that I had the strangest dream the other night, really, truly bizarre, and obviously I had to tell Lan Zhan all about it, except it turned out he had a strange dream too.”

Nie Huaisang’s jaw dropped. “But –”

“I felt da-ge’s qi woven into the labyrinth,” Lan Xichen said quietly. “I thought it’d have long ago dissipated or been locked away, but – it was there, in every stone, in every turn. Every obstacle that didn’t really hurt you, every goblin that was more silly than scary…he was there. It was unmistakable.”

Nie Huaisang swallowed. The story of the labyrinth, baby-stealing wish-granting goblin king and all, had been one that Nie Mingjue had told him as a bedtime story, when he'd been a child in need of comfort; he hadn’t thought of it in years before last night. “But…why…?”

“Because Chifeng-zun has a demented sense of humor?” Jiang Cheng suggested, looking irritated.

“Jiujiu means that he hasn’t had that much fun in years, and also that you should throw a party,” Jin Ling said. “You are hosting all three of the sect leaders of all the other Great Sects. Also, why were we rocks?”

“Uh, no idea,” Nie Huaisang said. “Da-ge’s weird sense of humor, no doubt! Anyway, did you say party? I can do a party!”

He rushed out of the room, calling for his servants, calling for them to bring food and wine and tea, and as he did, he looked out of the window – a golden bird was flying away, looking hunted as if something was chasing it, and even as he watched, it crossed the borders of the Unclean Realm and suddenly dissolved into a fizzle of golden dust.

Nie Huaisang put his hand on the stone wall, and felt a familiar echo.

A very familiar echo.

“Oh,” he said, to his servants, feeling somehow simultaneously sheepish and filled with joy. “And while you’re at it, can you bring me my saber? I seem to have – misplaced it…”