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wangxianficfinder · 2 years

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Lan Wangji leaves the Lan Sect

~*~

❤️For Both Of Us (And Time Is But A Paper Moon) by sami (E, 65k, WangXian, Time Travel, Some People Live/Not Everyone Dies, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Healing, Yunmeng Shuangjie, Canon Divergence, Asexual JC, First Time, Getting Together, BAMF JC, BAMF LWJ)

The Dreams of Youth by sami (E, 86k, wangxian, time travel, fix-it, family, not lan sect friendly, canon typical violence & gore, childhood friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, mothers who live, some people live/not everyone dies)

this blood in my mouth by ShanaStoryteller (Not Rated, 3k, WangXian, LSZ & WWX & LWJ, Post-Canon, POV LXC)

something something, farming as a metaphor for healing by alisonlynn (G, 1k, WangXian, sort of a fix it?, farming)

A War of Stone and Silence by kitsunealyc (T, 4k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Burial Mounds, Lans Being Crappy Communicators, Wall of Discipline, Remix)

You in me, you are mine, my everything by BriaPia (M, 24k, WangXian, SongXiao, Temporary Character Death, it's WWX, Canon Divergence, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, LWJ leaves Gusu Lan, what if situation)

Love You Forever: Body, Soul and Mind by orphan_account (E, 3k, WangXian, Bottom LWJ, Top WWX, PWP, Fluff and Smut, Marathon Sex)

Bones by Forever_Marie (M, 2k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Resurrection, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF NHS, Scheming NHS, Corporal Punishment, Slow To Update, Protective NHS, Hurt WWX, LWJ Has Feelings, Murder Mystery, Oblivious LXC, Pining LWJ, Kid Fic, Good Kid LSZ, Sassy LJY, Fierce Corpse NMJ, Single Parent LWJ)

Forget-me-not (don’t leave me behind) by Stelra_Etnae (T, 9k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Mother-Son Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, LXC Needs a Hug, Reconciliation, Protective Siblings, Cloud Recesses Study Arc, Madam Lán Lives, LQR Tries, Twin Jades of Lán Dynamics)

All was well when you were still with me by KoHITTSujiChan (Not Rated, 10k, WIP, WangXian, Established Relationship, Canon Divergence, Fake Character Death, for LWJ, He leaves the Lan sect!)

Answer the song of my heart by Artemis_Z_Stark (orphan_account) (G, 2k, LWJ/CWN, Started as a crack ship but now here it is, kinda character death, please no hate, stole a bit from Airplane bro, some svsss stuff)

From the beyond Series by apathyinreverie (T, 11k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Some angst, Ghost WWX, BAMF LWJ, BAMF WWX, Domestic WangXian, rogue cultivators wangxian, of sorts, Ghostly Sunshine Husbands: A Guide on Accidental Sect Creation by Hanguang-Jun, Cultivation World Critical, Fix-It, Oblivious WWX, Smitten LWJ, Time Skips)

All Exits Look The Same by Ahlai (T, 14k, WangXian, LWJ & MDM Lan, Canon Divergence, MDM Lan Lives, Family Feels, Healing, Grief/Mourning)

Home isn't Where the Heart is. by Hauntcats (Not Rated, 7k, WangXian)

The Sun Sets Like a Whispered Regret by OrdinaryRealities (T, 41k, JC & LWJ, WangXian, Resurrect Your Gays, LWJ and JC enemies to brothers, MDZS Big Bang 2020, Minor Character Death, discussion of characters who have died, And the trauma of that, Kidfic, Sort Of, characters working through trauma together, Give MXY some GD agency, Happy Ending)

Let It All Burn by makebelieveanything (T, 3k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Feral LWJ, just a little bit, warprize LWJ, YL WWX, Happily Ever After)

What Comes After Love by Rainbow_Horizon (T, 17k, WangXian, POV LWJ, Protective LWJ, LWJ Has Feelings, POV WWX, Sad WWX, Jealous WWX, Módào Zǔshī & The Untamed Combination, Post-Canon, Chief Cultivator LWJ, Break Up, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, marriage issues, Marriage Proposal)

Molten Gold by jesso (M, 17k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, LWJ loses his core, madam lan lives, pining, WX meet as children, character death, family feels, time jumps, dub con, WIP)

Volume 1: Less Than Dead by QueenieWithABeenie (T, 90k, WangXian, 3Zun, Canon Divergence, Demonic Cultivator LWJ, mentions of wwx's canon death, Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, Angst and Feels, Fix-It of Sorts, Explicit Language, Unreliable Narrator, Implied Sexual Content, Getting Together, haunted lwj, Rape/Non-con Elements, If You Squint)

the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break by RoseThorne (E, 77k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Soulmates, Self-Esteem Issues, Fix-It, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, PTSD, Handfasting, Panic Attacks, Getting Together, First Time, Aftercare, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Torture, Scars, Chronic Pain, Golden Core Reveal, First Time, Switching, sex-related injury, LWJ Stays at the Burial Mounds, LSZ is a Wèi, Good Sibling JC, Dissociation, Burial Mounds Settlement Days)

❤️love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, YL WWX, Arranged Marriage, political scheming, Gratuitous Domesticity, Mutual Pining, EXTREME SLOWBURN, the inherent eroticism of the forehead ribbon, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, neither wwx nor lwj want to be Perceived, bottom lwj in chapter 20 and 27)

my life's journey is far from over by thelastdboy (E, 147k, WangXian, Modern AU, Canon Divergence, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Post-Sunshot Campaign, PTSD, Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, POV WWX, Slow Burn, Anxiety, Situational Mutism, YL WWX, Case Fic, Sentient Burial Mounds, Recovery, Hurt/Comfort, Healing Is a Slow Process, therapy is good actually, All women deserve better, Modern AU but not too modern™, mlm/wlw solidarity, Mild Smut, Non-Verbal Safewords, Dom/sub, Kink Negotiation, Kink Exploration)

Patriarch by WithBroomBefore (T, 26k, WangXian, Fix-It, Canon Divergence, WWX Lives, JYL Lives, WQ Lives, YL LWJ, Hurt/Comfort, Serious Injuries, Injury Recovery, Healing, Minor Character Death, Found Family, Grief/Mourning, QS Lives, Minor MingSu, NMJ Lives, Good Uncle LQR, POV Multiple, MXY Lives, queerplatonic ZhanQing, Happy Ending, Domestic)

❤️And Miles To Go Before I Sleep by Glitterbombshell (T, 23k, WIP, WangXian, Heavy Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, LXC is not really a good brother in this sorry, Canon Divergence, rogue cultivator!lwj)

the wild hunt Series by antebunny (G, 18k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Non-Linear Narrative, JL and his many many uncles, jgy is morally ambiguous but okay, BAMF WWX, JYL Lives, Non-Graphic Violence, Fix-It of Sorts, Found Family, Domestic Fluff)

The Best I Can by Zephyr (ZephyrAndTheSilverfish) (T, 26k, WangXian, Little Apple, WWX talking to his donkey, Canon Divergence, Light Angst, Drama, Recovery, Coming of Age, Secret Identity Fail, Friendship, Rogue Cultivator LWJ, Road Trips, Sort Of, POV Multiple, Happy Ending)

A Narrow Bridge by FrameofMind, Jo Lasalle (Jo_Lasalle) (E, 623k, wangxian, time travel fix-it, slow burn, getting together, first time, pining, pining while fucking, angst w/ happy ending, WIP)

Evermore Series by devinokaze (T/E, 56k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, YL WWX, Fluff, Smut, Marriage, courting, Burial Mounds Ensemble as Family, Marriage Proposal, Older WWX, Just By Few Years, Post-Sunshot Campaign)

Fragments by devinokaze (T, 13k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, YL WWX, Domestic Fluff, Married Life, Burial Mounds Ensemble as Family, Older WWX, Just By Few Years, Post-Sunshot Campaign)

Home and the Heartland by Witch_Nova221 (T, 210k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, LWJ Stays at the Burial Mounds, Slow Romance, Romance, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Fix-It, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Self-Discovery, Golden Core Reveal)

the exception proves the rule by defractum (nyargles) (T, 5k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Getting Together, Character Study)

The Promises We Make by Mayarene Rose (Paradise_of_Mary_Jane) (G, 34k, WangXian, Happy Ending, Slow Burn, Fluff and Angst, Everybody Lives, Canon Divergence, Gratuitous Bed Sharing, Rabbits)

The Trouble With Politics: a Treatise on Jiang Sect Deputies Gone Rogue by Sect Leader Wei Wuxian by stiltonbasket (G, 40k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Yílíng Wèi Sect, or: the one where yu zhenhong is a wild card, Smitten LWJ, Domestic Fluff, Politics, Happy Ending, Sect Leader WWX, Fix-It of Sorts, JZX still dies though)

Diverge Series by WithBroomBefore (T, 13k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, First Kiss, Implied Sexual Content, Angst with a Happy Ending, Golden Core Reveal, POV LWJ, Established Relationship, Sickfic, lwj stays in the burial mounds, Siblings, Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies)

for you, i'd bleed myself dry by Evil_laughter (T, 1k, WangXian, Minor XiYao, Minor Character Death, Canon Divergence, Chance Meetings, Pining, POV LWJ, Reunions, Single Parent LWJ)

The Rogue Jade by SereneSorrow (M, 7k, WangXian, Rogue Cultivator LWJ, Family Drama)

#wangxianficfinder compilation post #lan wangji leaves the lan sect #lan wangji leaves the lan sect compilation post #compilation post #wangxian #The Untamed #MDZS #long post

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shen-liqin · 1 year

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I’M IN SCIENCE CLASS RN BUT I GOT AN IDEA FOR AN MXTX CROSSOVER

So I read in a meta post that it was mentioned in canon SVSSS that Airplane bro has written other stallion novels and that PIDW is just his most successful.

What if prior to writing all these stallion novels, he wrote MDZS and TGCF. It was smth he genuinely enjoyed doing but it didn’t really earn him cash bc it didn’t do well (IMPOSSIBLE I KNOW) so he kinda forgot about them. Both stories were finished though.

Bruh what if Wei Ying and Lan Zhan end up in SVSSS bc WY was messing with some talismans and ended up transporting them there. Meanwhile Xie Lian and Hua Cheng end up in SVSSS because of a mishap in Heaven.

I can already imagine Qinghua shaking when he sees these four and getting slightly emotional because they were created when he was still hopeful and somewhat naive regarding how he would get his income.

Shen Yuan is internally fanboying because as a dedicated fan critic, he also read MDZS and TGCF and greatly enjoyed it. Like yes my man is oblivious as fuck regarding romance as a whole, but he could care less about the main pairing being gay. He was only reading them for the lore.

WY and LZ are lowkey panicked but I can see WY somehow getting along well with SY because they end up bonding over being constantly wrecked by their husbands.

XL and HC are confused and kinda wary but they warm up to Bingqiu and Wangxian after a bit. Binghe prolly tries to give XL some cooking advice with HC lowkey breathing down his neck because if Binghe ends up unintentionally insulting XL then they’re definitely gunna have a problem.

Ngl I can kinda see Hua Cheng and Lan Zhan kinda doing their own thing in comfortable silence because if their mutual understanding of each other in terms of devotion. Binghe joins them from time to time when all three of their husbands hang out by themselves. Like I can imagine Lan Zhan composing a new song, Hua Cheng making a mini statue, and Binghe making everyone a meal.

Meanwhile Shen Yuan and Wei Ying end up convincing Xie Lian to do all sorts of ridiculous shit with them. If you guys are questioning why Shen Yuan would agree to any of this my answer is simple, this man may be a lofty immortal but he’s still a shut-in from the 21st century. He has a lot of semi-pent up crackhead energy.

Xie Lian is confused but he’s enjoying himself so he doesn’t question it and is just enjoying having some new friends. Wei Ying just wants to encourage the chaos.

WAIT FUCK WHAT IF WEI YING MEETS QINGHUA-

Lan Zhan and Mobei-jun are going to be drinking vinegar because if their husbands end up having a conversation then everyone is screwed.

Wei Ying is a genius, but Qinghua deadass created the mechanics of MDZS, TGCF, and PIDW. My man has a shit ton of knowledge and he’s gunna use it. Pretty sure Qinghua and Wei Ying end up doing most of the with figuring out how to send everyone back to their of worlds.

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nutcasewithaknife · 1 month

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Writing Patterns

Thank you for the tag @mx-myth and @bbcphile!! <3 (sorry for the dealy!! This got buried in my drafts a long while ago, and when I dug it up I realised I had a whole new fic up on ao3 since i first drafted this ;-;)

The task is to list out the opening sentence of the last 10 fics I've posted on ao3 and look for patterns! I'll do the same for the closing sentence of these fics too :)

2. Pieces (Mysterious Lotus Casebook; post-canon fic where Li Lianhua is found but cannot be saved, and difang grieve.)

Opening: 'That night, Fang Duobing fell asleep.'

Closing: 'Then they wiped off their tears and picked up the pieces together.'

2. Next Time We'll Meet Beyond The Stars Above (Mysterious Lotus Casebook; pre-canon fic following Di Feisheng and Li Xiangyi's relationship from their first meeting to the donghai battle.)

Opening: 'The first time Di Feisheng hears the name is in a shabby tea house, far from any town of notable significance.'

Closing: 'I win.'

3. Sleepless (Mysterious Lotus Casebook; gratuitous and lazy post canon feihua where they both can't sleep and decide to get horny about it)

Opening: 'Di Feisheng paused in the doorway at the sight of the empty bed.'

Closing: 'Satisfied, Di Feisheng let himself drift away too.'

4. Found (The Untamed; set during the 16 years between Wei Wuxian's death and resurrection. Lan Wangji wanders away and falls in love again, with another boy and another place, before coming back home.)

Opening: 'Lan Wangji had followed the beast’s trail to the farthest border of Qinghe.'

Closing: 'He didn’t look back.'

5. Fang Duobing and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week (Mysterious Lotus Casebook; cracky fluffy post-canon about Fang Xiaobao having an extended crisis about Di Feisheng sleeping with Li Lianhua instead of sharing the upstairs bed with him).

Opening: 'Fang Duobing returned to Lotus tower after about a week, with a spring in his step and a song in his heart.'

Closing: 'They were going to be fine, after all.'

6. A Perfect Night (Mysterious Lotus Casebook; gratuitous and lazy post canon feihua smut again! the previous fic is a sequel to this one).

Opening: 'Li Lianhua took a long drink from his gourd of wine and looked at the moon.'

Closing: 'He went to sleep.'

7. Foolish (The Untamed; sangcheng Modern AU where they're childhood friends who run into each other years later at a gay bar, and Jiang Cheng is having so many crises about his sexuality but being so brave about it.)

Opening: 'The whole liquid courage thing was a scam.'

Closing: 'They scuffled over it the rest of the way back.'

8. Save It For A Rainy Day (The Untamed; classic yunmeng bros reconciliation full of angst and screaming and, eventually, hugs)

Opening: 'Jiang Cheng was confused.'

Closing: 'If these were the troubles he had to bear… he could live with that happily enough.'

9. A Trial By Cold (The Untamed; wangxian modern AU crack where they're both in bed recovering from a cold, and as sleepy as they are horny.)

Opening: '“Lan Zhan.”'

Closing: 'His husband’s shoulder was the best pillow in the world (....except maybe his ass.)'

10. An Earthly Desire (Love Between Fairy and Devil; Lady Chidi's POV on her first time meeting and saving Rong Hao in the mortal realm.)

Opening: 'Death should’ve become easier by now.'

Closing: 'Facing death got no easier, but the reminder of life she returned to let her hope.'

Patterns:

In the older fics, there is a tendency to open with dialogue or (most frequently) a thought from the POV character. However, the more recent ones tend to begin with an action, often the POV character arriving at location that most/all of the fic is going to be set it.

The first lines usually get right into the head of the POV character. The tone of each depends heavily on this character and the tone of the fic itself.

The closing lines usually capture the crux of the story and call back to important themes in the more poignant fics. Given that most of my writing is strongly rooted in some kind of arc for the POV character, it often reflects their final state of mind. Depending on the kind of fic, it's bittersweet, hopeful, sad, or just plain ridiculous.

Just realising that all my lighter, fluffy Mysterious Lotus Casebook fics end with liansanjiao falling asleep peacefully and that's very very telling. They deserve to nap on each other and be lazy. as a treat.

Huh. I wonder if realising all this will change these patterns henceforth. It was very fun to distance myself from each fic and look at them all together. Anyways, that's pretty much all I noticed. If anyone spots something else I'd love to hear :3

Tagging every single fic-poster who sees this on their dash, please go wild, I look forward to it!! :D

#tag game #writing patterns

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notemily · 1 year

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Well, ladypfenix seems to have blocked me, which is a shame because I adore her stuff about morality in MDZS and would love to read more from her. But before blocking me she reblogged my post and I just wanted to defend myself against some of the things I'm accused of.

For the record this is the post, which I can't reblog because of being blocked.

I keep saying things about what I personally like and people keep interpreting that as me saying that my preferences are objectively better or that I think gay stories are better when they're sexless and subtextual, which is not what I'm saying at all.

(And yeah I'm probably missing some context, but expecting everyone in a fandom to have read every post people make in order to Have All The Context is unrealistic. There are new people joining this fandom all the time with no context whatsoever and it'd be nice if they didn't immediately get attacked for daring to express an opinion.)

As for Wangxian, of course I don't prefer for them to be best friends instead of husbands. I have read many an E rated fanfic about them on Ao3. People accusing me of just wanting sanitized queer stories where nobody has sexual desire are missing the mark. But I do get turned off by things like their first kiss being nonconsensual. "I just couldn't help myself, I had to kiss the guy even though he didn't know who I was" is NOT what I'm looking for in a fictional love interest. The Lan Wangji of The Untamed seems like he wouldn't do that, so I was more drawn to him than the version in the novel.

And yeah, I do think book Wei Wuxian is pretty oblivious. He catches up fast once he realizes what's going on, but as evidenced by the fact that he tells Jiang Cheng that he and Lan Wangji are "just friends" when they're at Lotus Pier near the end of the story, he doesn't realize what's going on for quite a long time. Yeah, there are reasons for that, but again, it's not what I prefer in a romance. And the trope of one person being oblivious while the other is pining is one MXTX seems to like - I'm reading SVSSS now and Shen Qingqiu is similarly unaware of how Luo Binghe feels about him for most of the novel. (And even when he does realize it, I have some trouble buying that he's attracted to Luo Binghe in return.) (Obviously Shen Qingqiu LOVES Luo Binghe, but I've been reading him as gray-ace and I don't think I'm alone in that headcanon.)

Another trope she seems to like is one where the first time the couple has sex is painful for one of them, and I just really don't like that. This DOESN'T mean I think she's wrong to write it or that people who do like it are wrong to like it, just that it's not my thing!

I prefer it when fictional couples both want to kiss each other, and when they take their time and make sure nobody is hurting when they have sex (and use lube). Preferring those things doesn't make me anti-sex or anti-gay. But I was disappointed by those scenes when I read the book, while I wasn't expecting the show to give me any sex scenes at all, so it didn't disappoint me in that sense. (I was disappointed by the show's ending where they separate, but it was ambiguous enough not to bother me too much.)

Anyway. I think the show is remarkably good for how much they had to cut out of the book in order to fit the censorship guidelines, which makes me wonder how much better it could have been if they didn't have to adhere to those. But I do think there's a romance there and it's a romantic show. Subtext isn't text, true, but it's also not nothing. The people making the show clearly knew they were adapting a romance, and the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji is the heart of the show.

Anyone who thinks the part with "the feeling of sticking to the single log bridge is indeed not bad" isn't a romantic scene because they don't explicitly get together later... I just do not get that. (Some people have even pinpointed the part in the show where they are implied to get together - it's in episode 43 - and yeah it's not explicit, but it's there if you look for it.)

Anyway now that I'm blocked by half the fandom I'll go back to shutting up, at least until the next time I get it into my head to Have Opinions, which is clearly not allowed around here.

#mdzs #the untamed #book vs show fight fight fight #fandom drama #i can't seem to stop pissing people off in this fandom #which sucks because i just want to like the things i like and talk to other people who like those things #and instead i get people attacking me for saying what i like #and then i feel like shit for several days #whee!

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hoarder-of-stories-27 · 2 years

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In response to your fav ship dynamic, flawd holy being/demonic being devoted to them, what are the ones other than Good Omens? Please and thank you? I love ineffable husbands and need more of that dynamic in my life. 💖

Hey! I checked your profile and didn't find anything about whether you're a minor or an adult (which is super valid! heck yeah practice online safety), so I'm saying this with the disclaimer that these are all adult novels with adult themes including but not limited to sexuality and gore/death/etc. If you're a minor, as a blanket statement, I don't recommend reading them until you're older, though of course reading them would be your choice still and you're the one who knows your tolerance for adult themes.

With that out of the way: Hualian, Bingqiu, Ranwan, and maybe Wangxian fit that dynamic! Those are all canon gay pairings (as in, the books focus on the romance between two men who kiss on the mouth multiple times on the page, and Hualian is the only pairing that doesn't have explicit sex scenes, though it is clear that they do canonically have kinky sex) in novels by the Chinese authors Mo Xiang Tong Xiu and Meatbun.

Here, I'll copy-and-paste my summaries for each novel from this post:

Tian Guan Ci Fu, or Heaven Official’s Blessing (Hualian): a disgraced god meets a disguised ghost king who treats him with a surprising amount of respect, and starts to work on healing from eight centuries of trauma. My favorite book ever. Sweeping fantasy romance with fascinating background characters and themes of criticism of mob mentality. Main content warnings: abuse, gore, suicide. No explicit sex scenes; definitely still an adult novel.

(Note on the dynamic: this is the one I was mainly thinking of, making that drawing. It's SO good.)

Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System (Bingqiu): a terminally online webnovel-obsessed Redditor-equivalent isekai’s into his favorite/most hated harem novel, and finds out, to his surprise, that the protagonist is gay??? Comedy that would be angst from any other character’s perspective. Main content warnings: dub/noncon, painful sex, internalized homophobia. There are a few explicit sex scenes between the main couple, including a dub/noncon/fuck-or-die scene.

(Note on the dynamic: Shen Qingqiu, the not-Redditor, is the flawed holy being, kind of. He's a cultivator - something like a wizard, maybe, in Western terms? though of course it's its own thing. Luo Binghe, the protagonist of the harem novel, is the demonic being devoted to him.)

Mo Dao Zu Shi, or Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Wangxian): a disgraced dead man who’s definitely straight, trust him, is given new life and proceeds to unravel a mystery with the help of an old friend. Casefic vibes with themes of criticism of mob mentality. Main content warnings: uhh it’s been a while but definitely at least death and torture. There are a few explicit sex scenes between the main couple, including dubcon/drunk sex and CNC.

(Note on the dynamic: Lan Wangji is the flawed holy being. Wei Wuxian is the not-dead-anymore man "Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation" refers to, though watch out for the differences between how people perceive him and how he actually is.)

Erha/2ha, or Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (Ranwan): an emperor who’s committed every crime, especially rape and murder, kills himself and wakes up as his teenage self, given a second chance with his teacher, the man he wronged most. Casefic vibes with themes of criticism of punitive justice, very dead dove. Biggest, most important content warning: rape. There are multiple explicit rape scenes, and they are integral to the story. I read this book for the rape scenes, and I was not disappointed. Do not read this if fictional rape is a trigger for you. Very good book.

(Note on the dynamic: Chu Wanning is the flawed holy being - another cultivator. Heads up that Mo Ran, the emperor, is very unlikable at first, but there is a happy ending.)

To anyone following me - please feel free to add on with other examples of this dynamic! I'd be interested as well. :D

#asks #ultramarine316 #my posts #long #tgcf #hualian #svsss #bingqiu #mdzs #wangxian #2ha #ranwan #/nsfa mention #/kink mention #/noncon mention #/death mention #/suicide mention #-responsible

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inessencedevided · 4 years

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What your favourite mdzs/cql ship says about you

So, by absolutely nobody's request I made a shitpost based on Eldena Doubleca5t’s awesome youtube videos. I included the link to the channel in the source because this post won’t show up if i put it here. Go give her videos a watch and then read this post in her voice because I swear to you it'll be a 100% funnier

Also, these are absolutely NOT to be taken seriously. I was just procrastinating by taking the piss out of these characters. I’m not here to start any ship wars. I don’t even have a legit opinion on over half these ships ^^ (though I DID jokingly include why I ship some of these. You can guess which)

Lan Wangji / Wei Wuxian (cql)

You’re always a slut for period dramas.

Lan Wangji / Wei Wuxian (novel)

You’re always a slut for the exact OPPOSITE of period dramas, which is sexual tension culminating in kinky consensual dub-con sex and copious amounts of pda.

Nie Mingjue / Lan Xichen

Your ideal high-school romance is jock/nerd.

Lan Xichen / Jin Guangyao

You’re a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of devotion, deception and despair.

Wei Wuxian / Mo Xuanyu

You were looking at that tumblr memes about fucking your clone and thought “Mhh ...”

Wei Wuxian / Wen Ning

You don’t understand people who say they wouldn’t date their best friend. Like, aren’t you best friends for a reason?

Wen Ning / Wei Wuxian / Lan Wangji

You either just wanted good things for Wei Wuxian (and really who wouldn’t?) OR you’re just ... really horny.

Luo Qingyang / Jiang Yanli

You read mdzs and watched cql and each time a woman was in a scene you just thought “Aren’t you tired of being nice? Don't you just want to go ape shit?”

Wen Ning / Jiang Cheng

You are YuBin. (there’s a post on his Weibo. it’s brilliant)

Wei Wuxian / Xue Yang

You have a secret necrophilia kink that you won’t admit to under threat of torture.

Wei Wuxian / Wen Qing

You want a girlfriend who not only can kick your ass, but will do so upon request.

Wen Qing / Jiang Cheng

You are a firm believer in 👏 men 👏 getting 👏 pegged.

Baoshan-Sanren / Lan Yi

You are a lesbian who loves MILFs

Jin Zixuan / Jiang Yanli

You’re ideal relationship dynamic is sitcom-wife/sitcom-dad

Lan Wangji / Jin Zixuan

Your ideal date involves awkward silence and stilted conversation.

Wei Wuxian / Jiang Cheng

You're really into sibling incest, but manage to pretend that you're not.

Ouyang Zizhen / Jin Ling

You're always a slut for grumpy “tough” boys who go soft for one ☝️ man.

Wen Qing / Jiang Yanli

Your ideal relationship dynamic is just girls bein’ friends, gals bein’ pals.

Jiang Fengmian / Yu Ziyuan

This is just the same joke as Wen Qing / Jiang Cheng but you also have a strong fondness for MILFs

Lan Sizhui / Jin Ling

You got your start in online fandom shipping drarry.

Lan Sizhui / Ouyang Zizhen

You love soft boys (too good for this world, too pure) so much that one day you were like, “Hey! You know what’s better than one soft boy? Two soft boys!”

Lan Jingyi / Jin Ling

You're a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of being bullied.

Lan Sizhui / Lan Jingyi

That’s just the same joke as Wei Wuxian / Jiang Cheng, but you just can’t with all their trauma.

Song Lan / Xiao Xingchen

You don't understand why anyone would care about a couple with a canonical happy ending when there’s a worst-timeline-au parallel ship right there.

Song Lan / Xiao Xingchen / Xue Yang

Based on my experience with this side of the fandom you‘re either into hardcore psychological horror or fluff so sweet it’s cotton-candy and there is no in-between.

Xue Yang / Xiao Xingchen

That’s just the same joke as Song Lan / Xiao Xingchen / Xue Yang, but you never forgave Song Lan.

Cangse Sanren / Wei Chanze

You're a firm believer in keeping things ☝️ canon and keeping things ✌️ wholesome.

Yu Ziyuan / Cangse-Sanren

You love the dynamic of teenage Wangxian, but you’re also a lesbian.

Jin Guangyao / Xue Yang

You were absolutely fucking thrilled when be gay do crime became the hot new meme.

Jing Guangyao / Su She

You’re a firm believerin the inherent eroticism of class-solidarity.

Luo Qingyang / Wen Qing

Honestly, this is just the same joke as Luo Qingyang / Jiang Yanli, but you’re also into girls out-topping each other.

Madam Lan / Cangse Sanren

You just want good things for Madam Lan and really, who wouldn't?

Wei Wuxian / Jiang Yanli

That's just the same joke as Wei Wuxian / Jiang Cheng BUT you're also heterosexual.

Nie Mingjue / Jin Guangyao

Your new favourite meme is that exchange that's like "go fuck yourself!" - "fuck me yourself, you coward!"

Nie Mingjue / Lan Xichen / Jin Guangyao

You are a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of failed conflict negotiations and unsolved moral dilemmata.

Nie Huaisang / Wei Wuxian

You're ideal date involves wacky hijinks after which PAIN ensues.

Lan Xichen / Nie Huaisang

You are a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of shared trauma.

Lan Xichen / Jiang Cheng

You are a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of shared trauma AND working through it together.

Wen Ruohan / Lan Qiren

I can’t say for sure that you wanna fuck dads, but you definetly want to fuck father figures.

Luo Qingyang / Luo Qingyang's husband

You’re always a slut for characters who are in dire need of more screantime.

Lan Wangji / Jiang Cheng

You don't understand why anyone would care about a happy marriage when there's an unstable love/hate relationship to fuck around with.

Luo Qingyang / Lan Wangji

You ... are Wei Wuxian

4K notes · View notes

morifinwes · 3 years

Text

wangxian fic rec list!

aka in which i read fics, write some recs down for aamna and share them!! they're all wangxian fics and uhh @yibobibo i hope you'll like them!!

modern

wolf devours playboy bunny by @greenteafiend (5K, werewolf!lwj, getting together, idk if anyone needs to know that but there's nudity just not uhh explicit)

Lan Zhan has wanted Wei Ying as long as he has known him, and the worst part is that he thinks Wei Ying could want him back.

Too bad he could never in good conscience let himself go there—Wei Ying has a debilitating fear of all things canine, and once a month, Lan Zhan is the exact, precise thing that Wei Ying’s nightmares are made of.

Aka, Lan Zhan is a werewolf.

between the lines by @jywait (19K gaming au!!!, i'm always down for a good gaming au, lwj is the best aksks he's such a good boy)

☆yilingpatriarch☆: pls...give me some face, help me fight these monsters...I'm gonna die

Bluetooth: no.

"You have died." The screen said, and Wei Wuxian threw his hands up in frustration.

resonant frequencies by chinxe (15K, college au, fake dating au, tw mention of cheating but it's brief and no one was cheated on i promise)

In which Wei Wuxian decides that the best way to deal with being in love with Lan Wangji is to pretend to date him for three weeks.

It goes about as well as can be expected.

drift compatible by windoworwhatever (5K, poetry, fluff, drunkji, getting together, college au)

"It was just a fact of life. The sky was blue, university stipends for graduate students working in TA positions barely covered rent, bisexuals cuffed their jeans, Lan Wangji had a massive crush on Wei Wuxian, and spent his time pining and writing research papers about gay subtexts in ancient poetry."

Lan Wangji is in love with Wei Wuxian, and everybody knows, except Wei Wuxian.

the bunny next door by detailsinthefabric (43K, this is mostly fluff and very light angst, and they were neighbors!!!, rabbits!!, aka wangxian's bunny children, this is... so cute i just have to rec it)

Lan Wangji did not know what he was doing. He did not know what he was going to say. He was frozen in place, puzzling over the situation. Maybe he had made the man uncomfortable, which is why he wanted to leave? But his tone had still been so friendly—maybe…

“Would…” he paused, swallowed, forced the last words to come out of his suddenly parched mouth, “would you let me pet him?”

-------------------------------------

Lan Wangji, who doesn't know how to socialize and whose icy demeanor scares everyone away, lets down all his defenses when he meets the bunny next door...oh, and also its owner, Wei Wuxian.

leading tone by silencemostofall (32K, everyone is a music student? or something like that akskk, curse fic, tw panic attacks, tw child abuse, small scene of drunkji, wwx has low self esteem, bro this was so painful to read)

The first time you touch someone you're fated to love, you leave a mark on their skin. If they will love you in return, they'll mark you where you touched them. The deeper the color, the deeper the connection.

Wei Ying has no marks at all.

public places, private thoughts by leahelisabeth (for the love of camelot) ( 8K, cherry magic au, getting together with like... immediate upgrade to fiance status, the author is wrong i crave good wangxian cherry magic aus even tho i haven't even watched cherry magic)

Wei Wuxian had heard the story of course. It had made its rounds through his high school and followed him into his college days. He didn’t think there was any possibility it was true. Virginity was a social construct, invented by creepy old men to exercise dominance over women. The idea that a simple lack of sexual activity before the age of thirty could give one magical powers was absolutely ludicrous.

Wei Wuxian believed this until the morning of his thirtieth birthday.

AKA the Wangxian Cherry Magic AU that absolutely nobody asked for.

i'd be all right (if i could see you) by @thirtysixsavefiles (16K, this was nice, i read this at 6am but it was cute, (while writing this post i must admit i don't remember anything but 6am-me said it's good))

The younger Lan brother is something of an enigma on campus; while Lan Xichen can sometimes be seen in the company of other graduate students or conducting a seminar, Lan Wangji appears to spend all his time in class or in the library. He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t smoke. He doesn’t attend social events. He doesn’t do anything for fun, as far as Wei Wuxian can tell, and it’s driving Wei Wuxian just a little bit up the wall.

Or, Wei Wuxian convinces Lan Wangji to come to a house party, and then they're assigned to the same group project. Wei Wuxian tries his best, but he is not in possession of all the facts.

axe on leg by itszero (4K, i still don't get why wwx did that but it was nice seeing him jealous for once, jealous!wwx, lwj i love you....)

Wei Wuxian pressed his face into his pillow and screamed. He paused to take a few deep breaths, partially hindered by the pillow, and listened to the sounds of Nie Huaisang slurping his iced coffee, from his seat on Wei Wuxian's desk chair.

Having caught his breath, he resumed his screaming and did not stop at the sound of his dorm room door opening.

"What's wrong with him?" He heard his brother, Jiang Cheng, ask.

The slurping stopped. "He's an idiot."

"He's always been an idiot. Why is he bothered about it now?"

"He forced Lan Wangji to go on a date," Nie Huaisang replied, shaking the ice cubes in his drink.

"Okay and…?"

"With someone else." The slurping resumed.

Wei Wuxian, in all his glorious dumbassery, convinces his boyfriend to go on a date with someone else.

these two most powerful by @stiltonbasket (4K, amnesia, wangxian with children!!!, aksksk this was adorable, dadji!!)

When Lan Wangji went to bed last night, he was alone in a tiny guest room with nothing but the howling of the wind in the mountains and his own lonely thoughts for company.

But when he opened his eyes in the morning, Wei Ying was asleep beside him.

(In which Lan Wangji loses twenty years' worth of memories after a night-hunt gone wrong, and his life as a doting father and husband continues without a hitch somehow.)

good things come to those who wait [but i ain't in a patient phase] by @cerlunas (4K, getting together, pining lwj)

Lan Wangji can't take it anymore.

“I love you”, he says, and god, it feels terrifying. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time.”

“Lan Zhan…” Wei Wuxian starts, but Lan Wangji doesn’t want to hear it.

He grabs his cup and drinks everything. He doesn’t know what face Wei Wuxian is making at him right now, and it’s okay.

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian repeats louder, but it’s too late. He is already falling asleep.

Or, even after 13 years, Lan Wangji is still in love with his best friend. Maybe it's time to open up.

wei ying, will you marry m- oh my god he swallowed the ring! by selene210 (2K, marriage proposals, crack, marriage proposals but.. they go wrong)

“A ring?”

And indeed it was. The ring Lan Wangji was going to propose to Wei Ying with. That the man had now choked on.

“You swallowed it.”

“It was in my soufflé! Why did you put a ring in my soufflé Lan Zhan- oh. oh”

of glittery valentine's cards by @soft-fics (3K, valentine's day, this was adorable aksk, a-yuan best boy!!)

Lan Zhan didn't want to know what his best friend had planned for Valentine's Day; his heart would simply not be able to handle it. When his son tells him that he made Wei Ying a Valentine's Day card, though, Lan Zhan decided to bring it over anyway.

of coffee and white tea by @soft-fics (9K, fluff, lwj doesn't like coffee, wwx buys him coffee, then they switch drinks, again and again and again, the staff ships it lmao, tbh jc shouldn't have done that like wtf)

For the fourth time this week a stranger orders him a cup of coffee. Lan Wangji wonders how exactly to tell this man to stop ordering him coffee he doesn't even like. Turns out, buying the other white tea and switching drinks is not the best way to go about it

canon setting

on the importance of restraint (or lack thereof) by nixthothou (4K, in which sizhui snaps, i love that boy, no like seriously he's the best boy)

Lan Sizhui does not usually find himself in the company of Sect Leader Jiang.

Suffice to say, Lan Sizhui's feelings toward him are conflicted.

lan wangji is wei wuxian's baby by lilycs (3K, i was craving fluff while reading this, lwj my beloved, drunk!lwj)

Lan Wangji gets drunk from barely a cup of alcohol, becoming a whiny baby and asking his husband for cuddles.

one of our own by glitteringmoonlight (8K, wei wuxian & lan sect, 5+1 things, in which they learn to love him, they're all part of the wwx protection squad lead by lwj, wangxian isn't the focus but !!! THIS)

Times change, but some people remain the same.

The Lans are nothing, if not aware of this.

For one of their own, they will stand against the world.

Or, 5 times the Lans defended Wei Wuxian, and the 1 time he was there to see it happen.

so why not crack your skull when the mind swells by @greenteafiend (13K, love curse, post cql canon, curses, getting together, fluff, so much fluff, lwj tries to talk about his emotions!, lwj pov)

Lan Wangji detects the curse trying to curl through his heart meridians like smoke. A love curse, then. It must have been cast remotely somehow to have found him in his bed in Cloud Recesses. No matter. Lan Wangji crushes it easily, enveloping it in his spiritual energy, and then squeezing. Curse averted, Lan Wangji closes his eyes and goes back to sleep. He thinks no more of it.

Two days later, Wei Wuxian arrives in Cloud Recesses.

Or, Wei Wuxian is cursed to feel terrible pain when he and Lan Wangji aren’t touching.

i started from the bottom / now i'm rich by x_los (57K, time travel, fix it, jealous lwj, crack treated serious, god this is so good tho, wwx/wrh & wwx/jgs but like as a joke and it doesn't really happen, but it has its purpose!!)

“First, you get the money. Then you get the power, respect - hos come last.”

Wen Qing traps Wei Wuxian in the Demon Slaughtering Cave, but Wei Wuxian isn’t interested in being the beneficiary of the Wen Remnants’ noble sacrifice. His efforts to free himself accidentally send him back to the beginning of the Sunshot Campaign. Coreless but armed with demonic cultivation, knowledge of the future and his wits, Wei Wuxian takes advantage of this opportunity to come out on top of both the war and its aftermath—before either has a chance to happen—by marrying and swiftly burying the cultivation world’s worst men.

Lan Wangji is confused, hurt, and uncomfortably aroused by Wei Wuxian’s improbably elaborate series of Sect-themed bridal negligees.

lead me on through by mrsronweasley (55K, they're in love your honor, arranged marriage but they don't know to whom, basically wwx & lwj want to practice kissing which then goes beyond kissing but not the whole way y'know, lxc the best wingman tho)

"Who do you think your betrothed is?" Wei Wuxian asks, sprawling out in front of Lan Zhan and enjoying the prim thinning of his lips at the question. He shouldn't be sprawling—they're in the library, for one, and Lan Zhan is studying, for another—but he can't help himself. Wei Wuxian is a sprawler.

"I do not believe this to be of importance," Lan Zhan responds, without turning his gaze away from his book.

"What!" Wei Wuxian sits up. "How can you say that? Of course it's important! This is the person you'll be with for the rest of your life, Lan Zhan."

523 notes · View notes

verycharismaticdragon · 3 years

Note

Hi! I absolutely LOVE ur detailed meta on tyk. Your analysis on wenzhou relationship is so in-depth and beautiful. I’ve seen that you think novel zzs is more traditionally masculine than wkx, and I agree. Actually, 20+ Chinese people who answered my poll agree that novel zzs is the most masculine among the 4 main characters in the tyk and shl (plus mdzs&cql wangxian)..

So, my question is: how do you think the gender performance & gender role of show wenzhou and novel wenzhou differ? If you think there is a clear difference, what’s your speculation about the reason behind such changes?

I am a Chinese person interested in gender norms in danmei novels/shows, and I would appreciate your insights on this!

So I've been sitting on this ask for a while because... well, the way danmei works approach gender is a fascinating topic and one that I'm interested in, but also one I’m largely unequipped to discuss in-depth, as I lack familiarity with 1) danmei genre and its conventions and trends, 2) Chinese cultural norms, historical and especially modern, and 3) academic studies on gender, – and I also don’t have neither time nor energy to go on a research binge right now, the way I did when writing TYK/SHL comparisons. Because of these gaps in knowledge, I can’t approach the topic from every angle and offer a thorough analysis; I want to make clear that I’m not accidentally missing possible approaches but rather intentionally skipping them.

That said, there are a couple of angles I can work off; perhaps those hypotheses will be of interest to you, or at least function as starting points for your own analysis.

–––––

The first point I want to speculate on is the one I’ve mentioned before, if vaguely: the way differences in WenZhou’s gender presentation in the novel stem from their contrasting approaches to social performance in general. Of the two, Zhou Zishu is much more concerned with appearances, the norms and rules of polite society instilled into him by his life in the capital (and perhaps by having to take up the role of Manor Master prior). Conversely, moving past that, taking off those literal and metaphorical masks and refusing to continue playing by the rules, is one of the central threads of his character arc; but his starting setting is someone who has trouble letting go of his previously established mindset. On the other hand, Wen Kexing, all throughout the text, is that person who ‘laughs when he wants to, plays the ruffian when he feels like it’ (quoting from memory, wording may be off). It’s not that he’s incapable of performing dignity (he is polite when he wants to be, e.g. when talking to Wu Xi or Long Que, or that brief time he and Zishu were putting on airs in front of Cao Weining); it’s more that he simply does not bother with conforming to social standarts (this very much includes him being openly gay and making it everyone else’s problem).

So, how does this reflect onto their gender presentation? (cont. under cut)

The way I read it, Zhou Zishu has a more rigid idea of masculinity and is more concerned about performing it, while Wen Kexing doesn’t much care how he comes off. Think about the use of ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ between them: Zhou Zishu very easily accepts the title of the husband, but still bristles at a mere implication of being considered the wife even five years later (last extra); Wen Kexing, on the other hand, doesn’t mind getting called the wife – there’s even an instance of him referring to himself as such in internal narration, if memory serves, – though he also thinks of himself as husband on occasion. Simply put, Wen Kexing’s gender performance is more relaxed, while Zhou Zishu asserts his gender identity every time there’s even an imaginary hint of him not being perceived as a man. In that way, the contrast between their presentations is not due to some innate qualities, but rather to the difference in the level of investment they have in maintaining appearances; if Zhou Zishu seems more masculine in comparison, it’s because he’s the only one putting in effort.

But this is for novel canon. I think that some part of a reason why show WenZhou’s gender performance doesn’t match up to their novel counterparts is that the more blatant indicators (such as husband and wife rp) couldn’t be shown, while their social performances are pretty different. Show Zishu’s arc does not follow the same trajectory of gradually discarding the constraints of society, – his decision to leave Tian Chuang isn't about feeling trapped in the political landscape but rather about losing faith in the cause, the motif of masks isn't built up, and so on, – which means that there isn't a basis for reading him as someone who puts on appearances and is used to following rigid social rules. Wen Kexing’s presentation also changed: the whole gentleman / literati vibe (carrying folding fan, playing xiao, quoting poetry every three lines) simply isn't present in the novel. Because of those changes, that contrast I spoke about for the novel doesn’t really exist in the show: Zhou Zishu isn’t as concerned with appearances, while Wen Kexing shows more effort at blending in with the society. (There’s even this small detail I happened to make note of: in the novel, after arriving at Zhao’s, there’s a hilarious bit where Zhou Zishu gets talked to by various people and, feigning politeness, replies to them all with basically the same phrase with only slight variation; in the show, it is Wen Kexing who does that instead.) And with that gap between their social presentations bridged, there's no longer a source for difference in the level of effort they put into gender performance either.

In fact, you could even take a step further and make an argument that, in SHL, the one more likely to put up a front is Wen Kexing, and therefore he is the one with heightened gender performance. Perhaps tie those added scenes of him drinking with girls to this, consider it as him faking hеtero-masculinity... But this is just a possible avenue to explore if you want to; I myself am not that interested in working out exact nuances for the show's canon.

Anyway, to conclude this section, – on the level of gender performance, novel Zhou Zishu actively asserts his identity, show Wen Kexing possibly plays his up a bit, show Zhou Zishu doesn’t exhibit any inclination, and novel Wen Kexing is canonically chill with however he is perceived. As for why there are differences, I think it's primarily a reflection of changes affecting their general social presentation, which all have different sources: Zhou Zishu’s character arc, especially a thread of exiting the society, was changed to accommodate added subplots; Wen Kexing's whole new vibe, I'm pretty sure, was a way to skirt c/nsorship (quite a number of instances of him meaningfully quoting poetry are replacements for blatant, unоbscured flirting from the novel); and honestly I still have no idea why a thread of Wen Kexing being the one to hide behind masks was added.

–––––

Then, another angle this topic can be approached from is how conventions and cliches of hеtero-traditionalist romance narratives affect our perceptions of characters’ gender presentation in m/m fiction.

No matter how fed up we are with those cliches, we know them, and we know which role is associated with which gender in literary tradition (e.g., damsel in distress: the rescuer is a man, the one saved is a woman). But what happens when those tropes and conventions are employed for m/m stories? Those associations, those ‘narrative genders’ so to speak, end up projected onto characters regardless of their stated identity (or get appended to their stated identity, like the recently popular ‘malewife’ moniker). There’s a lot of criticism going around regarding m/m fiction perpetuating traditionalist gender roles, but I think it misses an important nuance: since most of the romance tropes and conventions originate in het fiction, those connotations end up existing regardless of authorial intent. Every little thing: who is the one courting and who gets pursued, who gets center stage in action scenes and who cheers from the sidelines, who shows more emotion (or does more emotional labor), who is naive and who is worldly, who gets rescued and who does the rescuing, and, yes, who takes which role in bed, – none of those are inherently gendered, yet all have gender connotations in fiction, because of the literary tradition existing prior. With near-everything having such association attached, is it even possible to completely avoid 'perpetuating gender roles'?

But I do believe this is something authors are aware of, and take steps to counter. In most danmei novels I've read (not that many, mind), each character would get some indicators of one role and some of another, so the overall impression would balance out. As an example, and to return to the topic at hand: consider how in TYK, Wen Kexing is the one pursuing, while Zhou Zishu is the one getting won over; yet at the same time, Zhou Zishu is the gruff and stoic one, while Wen Kexing is emotional and affectionate; and so on.

Because the story doesn’t stick either of the characters into a fixed ‘narrative gender’, all of those traits and actions just come off as differences in characters’ personalities rather than indicators of gender identity. Like, Wen Kexing gets called ‘wife’ in TYK fandom, but that’s largely because he canonically takes up the label; had novel WenZhou gone by husband & husband in canon, I think people would just as easily go along with that. (If my understanding is correct, there is a basis for Wen Kexing being designated ‘wife’ from standpoint of traditional spousal responsibilities as they are portrayed in Chinese pseudo-historical fiction, but, again, this is out of my range of knowledge; and above, I’m talking more about readers' impression.) All in all, when reading, you don’t get the feeling that either takes up a feminine role at all.

This is the situation for TYK as I see it. For SHL, even I, someone who does not go into that fandom's spaces, caught wind of the whole SHL!Zishu getting called ‘laopo’/’wife’ trend. Interestingly enough, from what I’ve seen, show Wen Kexing didn’t get ‘husband’ affixed to him as strongly; and of course, the label doesn’t originate in the novel (unlike, for example, people utilizing mdzs wangxian’s ‘spousal roles’ for cql fic/headcanons), being the opposite of what’s stated on the page; so what, exactly, about show Zishu ended up generating this impression? I’m not going to pretend at certainty, but to me, it feels like the balance of ‘narrative gender’ indicators was slightly off for him – not to the point of him being stuck in a role of female lead or anything, to be clear, but just enough to be noticeable and affect the viewers’ perception of his gender presentation. I’ve seen a few people’s theories on the reasoning behind the ‘laopo’ label, and other comments on SHL!Zishu ‘getting the part’ of the female lead, and all of them noted different things – particular scenes (hairpin scene was cited a few times), Zhou Zishu’s image (not looks but rather framing/light/costuming, if I recall correctly; been a while since I’ve read that piece), Zhou Zishu being physically affectionate and openly showing emotion... But I really don't think any one of those things would create such a strong and widespread impression; it is all of them together that ended up tipping the scales.

As for why show Zhou Zishu got all of those indicators piled onto him, when that wasn't the case for the novel version… My guess is that it wasn’t a deliberate decision on the writer’s part, but rather the consequences of other, largely unrelated changes coincidentally aligning that way, – and, obviously, I’m not going to track every single scene and character trait to its source, I’ve taken long enough with this ask as is. But I do want to outline what I feel might be a reason behind a significant amount of those adjustments: the show trying to make Zhou Zishu, and WenZhou, more immediately and easily likeable, for as wide an audience as possible.

Look, for any show, the sooner the viewers get invested into the main character and the main couple, the better. Problem is, on the surface, novel Zhou Zishu's sole likeable quality is the hilarious and scalding commentary going through his head, which is hard to translate onto the screen; and his adorable side is hard to notice, as he covers it up with gruffness or bluster. As for WenZhou, they are, to put it mildly, an oddball couple, which I personally find appealing, but I understand that's a bit of a niche taste. So, to compensate for that, the show smoothed down Zishu’s hard angles: made him less brusque, softer, more outwardly affectionate – there are even a few scenes where acts of care originally performed by novel Wen Kexing are done instead by Zishu, as if to try to distribute those actions more equally between the two, – and there’s no denying that it did have the intended effect, making show WenZhou more universally appealing; their popularity speaks for itself.

But it also just so happened that many of the character traits that got overwritten were exactly the ones that held up novel Zishu's masculine presentation – and thus, the impression the two versions of the character give off ended up noticeably different.

–––––

And last one; as I said in the beginning, I'm not familiar enough with danmei genre to offer analysis from that angle – even if I have some theories, I can't vеrify them, at least not right now. Thus, what I’m going to write out next is only a guess, and anyone who has more familiarity with the topic is welcome to offer insight or correct me if I’m just plain wrong. So! Going off the way TYK is already subverting one of its genres, and also off it being published in 2010 and what I recall of m/m fiction disc/ourse back then, I wonder if Zhou Zishu’s presentation was meant to be a direct subversion of (or at least a response to) the stereotype of ‘feminine shou’. Again, I think the criticisms regarding m/m fiction ‘perpetuating gender roles’ are largely undeserved; yet I also wouldn't say that there isn't any stereotyping at all. But I don't know if it was prevalent enough in danmei works in those specific years for Zhou Zishu’s vibe to be a subversion; so this is just a guess.

–––––

Well, I believe that's all I have to say on the subject. In closing, I want to once again clarify that this meta is incomplete intentionally. And also, that all this is based partially on my own impressions and partially on comments I’ve seen around, and even those two things are not entirely in harmony (for example, just because I see where laopo thing comes from doesn’t mean I agree with that evaluation), so it’s perfectly natural if you(general,reader) had a completely different impression and partially or fully disagree. Lastly, I’m open to any and all follow-ups! Can’t promise a coherent response, but can promise to give whatever it is a thought.

–––––

- TYK meta masterpost - - SHL meta masterpost -

#tian ya ke meta #word of honor meta #tian ya ke #tyk #faraway wanderers #word of honor #shan he ling #woh #shl #wenzhou #zhou zishu #wen kexing #priest novels #danmei novels

103 notes · View notes

cqlfic · 2 years

Text

fic hunting compilation:

(asks submitted before 2021-11-21) so here are a couple fic hunting asks submitted anonymously, so i’m grouping them here under the cut - these are the ones where i didn’t know the answer off the top of my head, so any help would be appreciated! i’ll update the post as we start to find them, and then reblog it we’ve found all of them!

(1) Hi. Ages ago, I've read a fic where WWX was in Cloud Reccess and it was attacked by some cloud of resentful energy controlled by a character. The fic was also a bit about sense of belonging and home if I remember correctly. Does it ring any bell?

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(2) Hi, sorry to bother you. I'm looking for a Fic where wei ying dressed up As a woman for halloween and slept with lan zhan. Then he continued to sleep with him thinking lz is just a straight dude experimenting. But at the end it turns aout lz is gay.

@nickel710: i’ll be your girl by plonk (E, 30774 words) [series: i’ll be your girl]

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(3) read one fic where Wei Wuxian was living in cloud recess after canon. He was breaking too many rules and Lan Wangji was secretly taking punishment on his behalf. This made Lan Xichen angry and he told Wei Wuxian that Lan Wangji obey the rules because he likes them and Wei Wuxian is being disrespectful towards their rules on purpose. Afterwards Wei Wuxian apologized.

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(4) Please I am really in need of your fic finding skills. I've been looking for this fic for weeks now and I really don't know how to find it.

It's a fic that I've always wanted to read but forgot to bookmark it. It says in the summary that wwx (I think?) accidentally entered a room but when he opened it, people in robes were looking at him. He thought they were actors and he just stepped into a shooting scene. Those were cultivators and he time traveled or world travelled somehow. That's the only clue I remember.....I'm sorry if it's too little. I hope you can help me. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE💕💕

it could be Wrong Turn, Right Place by diamondbruise (E, 71309 words)

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(5) Hi! I was wondering if you could help me find this fic I've been thinking about? I don't remember much but I know it was mostly about wwx settling into cloud recesses and realizing that he belongs there. I remember one scene where a group of cultivators come to try and take wwx away (and he's about to give up and go with them) when lqr and lxc hold him back and the lans fight for him to stay. it's been on my mind for a while and i'd like to read it again...thank you! 🥰

@wildmagicplant: one of our own by glitteringmoonlight (G, 7748 words)

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(6) So I know this fit exists, I've seen it, but i can't find it now for whatever reason. What I know: jiang cheng dies instead of jiang yanli, jiang cheng and lan zhan bond over raising their children, etc etc. (Thats what it says in the summary of this pic on ao3). Would love if you could help me find this!

@annabelleeyesen: picking up the pieces by KouriArashi (@gingersnapwolves) (M, 111132 words)

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(7) Hi thank you for everything that you’re doing for the MDZS fandom!

I was wondering if you could help me find two fics that I can’t seem to find no matter how hard I try.

I remember this one being told from an outsider perspective, a random female cultivator comes across WangXian in the words while they’re having sex. She ends up watching them from a tree keeping herself concealed with a talisman. After watching their interactions with one another she comes to several conclusions about her own romantic relationship with her husband.

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(8) [continued from above] ...I remember less details about the second one but I do remember one key part of it was that I think it’s some sort of canon divergence as Jiang Yanli and Lan Xichen end up exchanging letters after the lectures at cloud recesses since they realize their little brothers have feelings towards one another. And I think WangXian relationship is more positive than the one in canon as WWX ends up taking several apprenticeships after the lectures to learn more skills and he ends up sending LWJ a pair of gloves made from white dragons scales…

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(9) [part of a longer ask] The second was about an attempt to kill Jin Ling. I can’t remember too much, but it ended up being a girl trying to kill him and there was a voodoo doll that ended up being her brother, I think, because wei ying switched it. Please help!!! Thank you!!!!!

#fic hunting #fic hunting: unresolved #...help #i feel a little bad shunting these off onto the general populace but i feel even more bad just sitting on them waiting for my brain to work

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ouyangzizhensdad · 4 years

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I’ve got a bone to pick with people that haven’t read or didn’t pay attention while reading the novel and then claim the novel is homophobic because “LWJ calls WWX his wife”. Two things, quickly:

First, it annoys me because we only really have a few tongue-in-cheek moments where WWX gets indirectly referred to with a feminine title in the novel. He is never genuinely addressed that way by any character.

There is this moment with A-Yuan at Mass Grave Hill, where WWX fake-outraged demands why A-Yuan only ever called him ‘gege’ but called LWJ ‘a-die’ (there is as well another layer to this scene since, contextually, when A-Yuan cried for his ‘a-die’ in front of LWJ he was actually calling for WWX).

“You even called him a-die. What do you call me? You’ve only called me gege, an entire generation shorter than him!”

Wen Yuan jumped, “I didn’t call him a-die!”

“I heard it. I don’t care, I want to be someone taller than brothers and dads in seniority. What should you call me?”

“But…” Wen Yuan pouted. “But A-Yuan doesn’t wanna call you a-niang… That’s so weird…”

Wei Wuxian exploded again, “Who told you to call me a-niang? The one with higher seniority than brother and dad is granddad—you didn’t even know this?

Then, there is the moment that gets misrepresented all the time between LWJ and WWX. LWJ refers to them as being married, hesitantly having to settle on the word 夫妻 which is made out of the characters for “husband” and “wife”. As others have explained better than I can, this term was the neutral/correct way of saying “married” even if it is inherently gendered. The ExR translation decided to go for “husband and wife” where others have chosen to translate it to “married”. However, at the end of the day, it makes sense to translate it as “husband and wife” in the context of LWJ’s hesitation. When he wants to express that they are married, he pauses (which is always telling with LWJ), having to grapple with the implicit gendering that does not suit their actual situation. It is another illustration that their union is counter-cultural, in a sense: they do not have a box in which they fit perfectly well in their society.

Lan Wangji plunged over and finally caught him, holding him tight in his arms as he protested, “We have prostrated thrice, so we already are… husband and wife. It does not count as an affair.”

Second, and I cannot stress this enough, even if LWJ and WWX had decided to refer to one of them as the “wife” after an entire novel in which they had been fleshed out as complex characters, it would not have been a fucking huge deal. And yes, even if the one being referred to as the “wife” would have been the “bottom”. Some of y’all really need to fucking stop policing queer people’s gender expression and transgressions and thinking you’re inherently in the right because you use words like “heteronormativity”. Not only was the practice of using different pronouns or titles (calling your partner your “wife” or “husband”) extremely common in the past and still is in a number of places in the world for queer people, it still happens all the time even in the West. Gay men talking about each other as “sisters” and “queens”, he/him lesbians, etc. they all exist. I myself frequently use masculine titles to refer to myself and some of my gay friend use masculine titles to refer to me as well. I would gladly let any woman call me her boyfriend. Of course, some queer people don’t enjoy it for themselves, and that’s all fine and cool! But that doesn’t give anyone the ground to criticise people who do so, or to infer that any fictional depiction of characters who do so is automatically homophobic and wrong (the critique must be done in context of the entire treatment of the queer characters). If these ideas make you uncomfortable because as a queer person you don’t enjoy these types of gender play/transgressions/questioning, then I’d suggest maybe trying to figure out why it brings about such a strong reaction when other people do it and also maybe reading more queer history and books discussing queer cultures all around the world.

(Quick note: that’s never been what the concept of heteronormativity was about anyway. The way the concept was introduced it was meant to recognise that homophobia/compulsory heterosexuality is intricated with gender, and that being queer then implies questioning and playing and transgressing gender difference and norms. A slightly more accurate term to leverage could be “homonormativity” but even that concept doesn’t really fit: that is, unless, they want to start saying Wangxian are bad “representation” for getting married and thus perpetuating the heterosexual culture of marriage and monogamy.)

#mdzs #mdzs meta #i have insomnia and instead of sleeping i am thinking of things that anger me so sorry if my tone is a little pointed #wangxian

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peridot-tears · 4 years

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About MXTX’s problematic m|m

There is a cultural component to this. Understand that my analysis is based off looking over Chinese and western history and interacting with both the western and Asian sides of the fandom. I’m Chinese American, so I have access -- and speak Chinese and English -- to both sides, but at the end of the day, the idea of what’s a respectful or disrespectful way to portray LGBTQ culture is made up of millions of individuals’ subjectives. My analysis is only a nibble of the entire cookie.

We talk a lot about how MXTX’s writing is fujoshi fodder. It’s literally yaoi. Whether you read it in English or Chinese, it’s literally yaoi. She got her start in reading yaoi D. Gray-Man fanfiction.

I talk more about her portrayal of gender roles and queercoding here.

So MDZS in particular -- it’s the only one I’ve read, though apparently, TGCF has the same aspects -- presents a “man” and a “woman” in a boys’ love relationship. Wei Wuxian is the wife and mother. He’s literally curvy, always fainting into Lan Wangji’s arms, has a higher voice, grew up among lotuses (which isn’t necessarily “feminine,” but from a modern lens, even in contemporary Chinese society, does have that slant), and is always the one getting penetrated. Power bottom, thy name is Wei Wuxian. 在下名叫魏无羡。

Lan Wangji, in a lot of art, is portrayed with a broader jawline, is markedly taller by the time Wei Wuxian gets Mo Xuanyu’d back into life, is jacked AF (all the better to carry wifey and one [1] dead Nie Mingjue with, YEET), and is quiet and stoic with a deep voice. And he always tops. Let’s not forget the incense burner chapters where he literally tops Wei Wuxian while demanding, “Who is the husband?”

Not to mention the copious amounts of sexual tension and unprotected sex, and WangXian’s non-con kink. This is gay porn. Not PWP, but gay porn nevertheless.

So this dichotomy between masculine husband and the feminine wife husband is clear.

I know the western fandom often is either queasy with this or HATES this. It comes off as fetishy, and really, why does a homosexual relationship HAVE to follow these traditional gender norms? Don’t force heteronormativity onto a gay couple, damn it. But there have been western fans who’ve just...jumped down MXTX’s throat for this. Way too fast, and not always deservedly.

The Asian fandom, as I’ve seen it, tends to be a little more blase about this. I talked around, and while I don’t like the few Chinese people who whine, “ERMERGERD THEY ARE HUSBAND AND WIFE THERE IS NO SWITCHING UNDERSTAND CHINESE C U L T U R E -U-” most people are very chill with it.

I think for China at least, our social relationship with homosexuality has been...very on and off. If we trace back the last couple of dynasties, there are documented periods of time where homosexuality was...fine! Absolutely normal! Confucius’s word is law when it comes to building a home with a man and wife and kids, but it’s not going to kill anyone to love who you love, even if it isn’t someone of the opposite cis gender. There are records of people casually talking about courtship between men in certain regions, and it’s...fine. When Christian missionaries came over, they were fucking horrified (GOOD, nobody ASKED for your dumb opinion).

In Europe, and eurocentric America? Well, you still hear people screaming on the street about homosexuality being a sin, and that’s been consistent in the last couple of centuries. That stigma has been much more enduring, whereas China has fluctuated. And it shows in our literature, and the media based off of it.

What I’m saying is, despite the current state of censorship and the fact that it’s a LOT harder to be openly gay in China than it is to be in most places in the west, you can’t censor or stigmatize away the fact that Chinese people still subconsciously appreciate queer romance. And if it’s kind of fetishy and there’s too much of a husband-wife dynamic? Well, so long as they’re happy, and truly in love, it doesn’t matter. Some people genuinely like that dynamic, so we’ll leave it as is.

We applaud The Untamed for being a breakthrough LGBTQ drama, and it is...because it’s made a breakthrough in the west. People all over the world can appreciate the love and care the cast and crew risked to make it a real love story between two men. But honestly, this isn’t the first major piece of LGBTQ media to make it to the Chinese mainstream. Farewell My Concubine 霸王别姬 was fucking censored when it came out in the 90s, but people still watched it, loved it, and still make media based off of it. There’s a whole fucking LGBTQ film scene in Beijing that struggles to even exist, but does indeed exist.

(There’s a whole other conversation about how censorship has prevented a lot of media from exploring more queer relationships that say FUCK YOU to the man-wife dynamic, but that’s for another day. See: Addiction [web-series].)

Whereas westerners generally had a more rigid and inflexible conception of how any relationship should work for centuries. When you rebel against homophobia, you rebel against the patriarchal, heteronormative structures that come with it.

This is a really long, nuanced conversation to have, and I don’t think I covered all the bases, but at least this opens up that discussion at least a little bit.

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tsuyoiqueen · 3 years

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Be My Husband (WangXian Fix-It Fic)

Okay, first of all, I’m sorry, I don’t know what this is and I blame it entirely on @hiimherefortheuntamed because you reblogged my post and used your tags to wonder if there was a fix-it fic with this scenario. I don’t know if this has been done before but the idea of a confident gay straightforward Lan Wangji proposing to Wei Wuxian back when they had lunch with A-Yuan was stuck in my head, I had to write it.

This follows The Untamed more closely than the novel but I mixed some stuff (like here they can fly on their swords) and also this is my first time writing Wei Wuxian’s POV, sorry if it sucks. I have two other on-going fics that I’ll only post when they’re all betaed but they’re respectively on Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng’s POV. Though I have to admit, writing panicked gay Wei Wuxian was very funny! Either way, enjoy!

[Also here on AO3]

At first, Wei Wuxian is sure he heard it wrong. Maybe the Burial Mounds damaged his hearing? Or perhaps eating so much pepper — because really, Lan Zhan ordered way more food than he had been getting used to — melted away his last brain cells, and the ones that managed to survive decided to trick him into thinking such nonsense.

The only other option is that it's a joke, except Lan Wangji never jokes. The closest Wei Wuxian ever came to seeing a glimpse of his sense of humor was back in the Xuanwu Cave when Lan Wangji said "You're welcome" after Wei Wuxian complained about the pain he was in when he was caught off guard by second master Lan rubbing medicine on his wound.

So he must have been insane.

When he met Lan Wangji earlier and saw A-Yuan clinging to his leg like a child to a father, he thought it could only be a dream. After parting at the Qionghe Road, Wei Wuxian was sure the next time he'd see his friend, they would be on opposite sides. Lan Wangji had let him go before but one day they would have to fight to the death. Deep down, Wei Wuxian knew.

And yet, when he was expecting a scowl or a glare from the other male, he could swear he saw a sparkle in his eyes. He seemed almost relieved, hopeful? It was similar to the look he had on his face when their eyes met during the hunt in Phoenix Mountain, right before he told Lan Wangji he used to think of him as his zhiji.

Talking to Lan Zhan was easy. He didn't ask questions, nor made A-Yuan feel left out or mistreated him for being a Wen. Wei Wuxian was thankful, filling the silence with his usual babbling, going as far as to inviting Lan Wangji to a meal. If that was their last time hanging out as friends, he wanted Lan Wangji to remember it as a nice outing with someone from his past. He was tired of pushing everyone away and, at least Lan Wangji had shown respect towards his decision.

And, of course, knowing shijie was getting married to that peacock was worth it. Even though Wei Wuxian couldn't dare to hope to attend it, he was glad Lan Wangji told him about it, and maybe that's what pushed him to make such a stupid question.

"Lan Zhan, what do you think of this marriage?"

Lan Wangji didn't say anything. "Oh, that’s right. Why did I ask you? What thoughts could you have on the matter anyways? It’s not like you ever think about these things."

He reached out to grab the liquor and drink it in one gulp when he saw Lan Wangji shaking his head slightly before Wei Wuxian could keep talking, so he waited.

"Indeed, I don't have an opinion, but I wish to ask Wei Ying something." His voice was stable and his face remained stoic but his grip on the cup tightened just like it would if he had been holding Bichen instead.

That was unexpected. "Sure, you can ask me anything, Lan Zhan."

Lan Wangji took a sip of his tea and set his chopsticks down perfectly placed on top of his bowl. "Would you like to help me with my wedding?"

Then Wei Wuxian, who had been casually drinking the rest of his wine, quite literally choked.

Lan Zhan is engaged? How could it be? It's been a month or two since we last saw each other. Could he be that fast? He always seemed like an inexperienced guy but he's handsome and attracts attention wherever he goes. Maybe it's a political arrangement? Is it someone from his clan? Someone from LanlingJin or even Yummeng?

His throat burned from the alcohol and his outburst scared both little Yuan and Lan Wangji. The kid scooted closer to pat his back lightly while his friend reached into his pocket and offered a handkerchief so that Wei Wuxian could wipe the drink that spilled on his neck.

"Xian-gege?" A-Yuan asked, concerned. Lan Wangji had the same look on his face and Wei Wuxian would have laughed if he could breathe because they did look similar.

He wiped his mouth and tried to focus, drinking the tea Lan Wangji had poured into his cup because there's no way he could still drink wine after that. When he was finally sure he wouldn't die on the spot, he smiled.

"I'm okay, I'm okay." He told A-Yuan, then felt Lan Wangji's eyes on him and realized he still hadn't answered his question.

Jiang Yanli's wedding was a surprise but somehow expected, Lan Zhan's was not. Wei Wuxian had been completely caught off guard but he wouldn't refuse to help Lan Wangji when he asked for it, even though it would just be another ceremony Yiling Laozu wouldn't be able to attend.

"Oh, you're getting married?" He asked to be sure he wasn't mistaken.

Lan Wangji didn't even blink. "Yes."

Alright... Wei Wuxian averted his gaze. "That's nice." It didn't feel nice but he wouldn't be able to explain why. "What do you want me to do?"

Then Lan Wangji had the audacity to smirk, his lips going upwards and a mysterious glint in his eyes when he said, "Be my husband."

No way, I must have imagined it. He thinks after the shock subsides and he's looking through the memories of the last few minutes, trying to figure out what Lan Zhan said when he spaced out for enough time to think his best friend would propose to him, of all people.

He comes up with nothing so he presses his lips into a thin line, feeling his mouth dry. Maybe asking again will help. Lan Wangji will surely undo this misunderstanding. "Sorry, I didn't get that. What did you say?"

He laughs but it comes out weak like his heart is right now, skipping a beat at everything Lan Wangji does. The way he bats his eyelashes. How he licks his lips, and starts lifting his hand towards his forehead, gently untangling his headband from his hair and... untying it?

Wei Wuxian feels mortified but gapes at Lan Wangji as he unties his sacred headband and extends it to him, bowing slightly.

"Lan Zhan..." He hates how his voice comes out in a panicked pathetic state but that's exactly how he feels right now and what the fuck is Lan Zhan even doing? Isn't the headband only supposed to be touched by your family and your significant other?

Be my husband, Lan Zhan's words echo inside his head, reminding him of his inner conflict. Suddenly Wei Wuxian is quite aware of the Yiling locals watching the exchange in hope of something that'll become a topic for gossiping later.

If Lan Wangji is joking then he must be a comedian because that's the most elaborate joke Wei Wuxian has ever seen. He tries to laugh again. "Lan Zhan, what are you doing?"

Lan Wangji still doesn't raise his head, "Take it." He demands and Wei Wuxian knows he means the headband, but why—

Dumbly, Wei Wuxian tries to come with an excuse, "You want me to help you practice for when you do this with your wife? Is that what you wanted help with? Oh, Lan Zhan, I didn't know you trusted me this much!"

He swallows and reaches out to grab it but Lan Wangji snatches it away, glaring at him like he's been offended. And maybe he has, but Wei Wuxian still feels clueless.

"Brother rich wants to marry Xian-gege?" Wen Yuan asks and they both look at him, ashamed that they forgot his presence for a while.

"Eh?" Wei Wuxian's eyes widen and he rushes to clarify. "No, no! Lan Zhan has a fiancé, he's getting married but not with me!"

Lan Wangji sighs, scratching his headbandless forehead. He looks tired and Wei Wuxian feels bad for being so dumb, almost rushes to apologize, "Not a wife." He says.

At that, Wei Wuxian blinks. Not a wife, a husband then? Could it be that Lan Zhan's a cut sleeve? "Sorry, sorry. You never told me who your fiancé is so I wouldn't know if it's a woman or a man."

Lan Wangji shakes his head, "Not a man, not a woman. Only Wei Ying."

Wei Wuxian feels his entire face burn and now he knows it has nothing to do with the spice, "Lan Zhan..."

"I can't do much for Wei Ying as a friend." Lan Wangji explains, feeling more confident now that Wei Wuxian is starting to understand. "But if we get married, I'll be able to protect Wei Ying from everyone who means harm or wants to torture the Wens."

Wei Wuxian nods. That makes sense. No matter how powerful Yiling Laozu is, there's always someone threatening him or wanting to bring him to justice but nobody would dare to lay a hand on Hanguang Jun's precious husband. It'd be a death wish.

Wei Wuxian smiles, feeling warm all over as he thinks it through but he can't accept it. Marrying him might be useful but Lan Wangji would have to deal with all the hatred that's aimed towards the grandmaster of demonic cultivation, he might even lose face and his uncle would never forgive him for making such a rash decision. Lan Zhan deserves better.

He opens his mouth but Lan Wangji narrows his eyes like he knows exactly what he's gonna say and Wei Wuxian shuts up again. "Before Wei Ying says no, you must be aware that I have already decided and I do not plan on marrying anyone else."

"Lan Zhan, I—"

"I love you."

They blurt out in unison and Wei Wuxian's heart thumps so loud he thinks Lan Wangji can hear it.

"You what?"

Lan Wangji rolls his eyes and Wei Wuxian can tell he must have picked up that habit while he was with Jiang Cheng, during the three months they searched for him and worked together in the Sunshot Campaign.

"Wei Ying, I love you. I have for a while. Spent these months regretting I ever let you walk away and choose this path alone. If I am not by your side, life does not have meaning. I wish to aid you and take care of the people you so carefully protected despite having to leave everything behind. I wish to have you as my husband and fight for justice by your side until the day I die," Then he adds, as the silence stretches on, "If you are willing to."

Wei Wuxian feels like his knees could give out if he wasn't already seated. He tries to process Lan Zhan's words as fast as he can but seems to be coming up short because his mind refuses to work. Lan Wangji takes his silence as a rejection and slowly ties his headband again, nodding once. Wei Wuxian's feels his heart sink but why isn't his mouth working and is his chest really burning or is that—

He pulls out a talisman from his lapels, his mind fully focused on something else entirely, but it burns and turns to ashes not long after. Lan Wangji's gaze hardens.

Wei Wuxian stands up. "Oh no. Something must have happened on Burial Mounds..." He whispers and sandwiches Wen Yuan between his arm and body. "Lan Zhan, I have to go back."

He stares at him longingly, wanting to continue this conversation some other time but he can't promise that because he doesn't know when they'll be able to meet again. Lan Zhan already thinks he turned him down and Wei Wuxian still doesn't know what his answer should be but now is not the time.

He's in such a hurry he doesn't even realize A-Yuan's struggling. "My butterfly!" He says but they're already outside the restaurant.

Then a white shadow sweeps beside him. Lan Wangji follows them. "Lan Zhan? Why are you following us?"

He doesn't miss the hurt that clouds his face before he places a butterfly into Wen Yuan's palm. He doesn't answer the question, "Why do you not mount your sword?"

Wei Wuxian almost groans, "Forgot to bring it!"

Without saying anything, Lan Wangji takes him by the waist and mounts Bichen as they rise into the air.

———

It's only much later when Wen Ning has been awakened, Lan Wangji has found out about his wounds and Wen Qing has threatened him, that he and Lan Wangji can be alone together.

He walks with him until they reach the foot of Burial Mounds. They stop in unison, the silence almost unbearable. Wei Wuxian can't help but miss the straightforward Lan Wangji from before.

He keeps these thoughts locked away. A moment later speaks up about how he can't give up on what he's fighting for, asks Lan Wangji what he can do apart from this, tells him he'd do the same if he's in Wei Wuxian's shoes. He launches into a monologue he had long memorized for the next time someone from his past decided to visit. Be it Jiang Cheng or his shijie or even Nie Huaisang. He had not expected he'd be saying that to Lan Wangji.

And it feels so wrong now. Shutting his zhiji out after he's shown him only support and love makes Wei Wuxian sound ungrateful and uncaring like he's completely ignoring the fact that Lan Wangji, a man who has never cared about relationships, has proposed to him, opened up about his feelings.

The first confession Wei Wuxian got in his life and he still managed to screw it all up by giving him the wrong impression and refusing to acknowledge it even now, when they're safe from any danger that could have justified his reaction earlier.

He swallows, thinks he's doing what's best for him — Lan Wangji couldn't get used to a life like that — and begins to talk about how he'd walk a broader safe road if he could but he can't protect the people he wants to if he gives up the Stygian Tiger Amulet and his demonic cultivation.

Lan Wangji gazes at him. They both know there's no such road but the other male seems to be holding himself back and before he can even come to terms with what he wants to say, Wei Wuxian tells him not to worry. He knows what he's doing and won't lose control.

Then he softens visibly, "Thank you for keeping me company today. Thank you for telling me about my shijie's wedding. Thank you for..." For what? For proposing to him? For confessing his feelings? For still flying him and A-Yuan back to Burial Mounds even though Wei Wuxian just broke his heart? "For being so kind to me... I appreciate it."

Wrong. It sounds like Wei Wuxian is thanking him for helping him cross the street but he doesn't know what to say, has never been in a situation like that before. Lan Wangji nods, like he was expecting that answer, and closes his eyes. Wei Wuxian hates it, wants to hold him and tell him something, anything that'll take that pain away but he can't. He was the one who caused it. So he keeps smiling and tells himself it's okay. If he cries later he can blame his wounds, surely Wen Qing would tease him about it but wouldn't question it.

Then Lan Wangji opens his eyes and they both look down because A-Yuan is clinging to his leg again. Wei Wuxian would find it cute if he wasn't so eager to go back so he scrunches his nose and shakes his head like he's telling the kid that it's not the time and bends down to pick him up in his arms.

Wen Yuan doesn't understand the warnings and asks Lan Wangji to stay for dinner, tells him he knows a secret and there'll be lots of food tonight. It's sweet and Wei Wuxian is glad the kid liked Lan Zhan but he can only take so much.

"This brother here has food waiting for him at his own home. He won't be staying."

"Oh," A-Yuan replies, disappointment written all across his face, and clings to Wei Wuxian's neck tighter. He doesn't try again.

"I'm leaving." Lan Wangji says and they both nod to each other as he gracefully walks away.

He's leaving. That's the mark of their farewell. Lan Wangji is leaving and the next time they see each other they'll be on opposite sides. His heart sinks and he can't do anything but stay frozen to the spot, watching his zhiji getting farther with each step.

"Xian-gege is crying?" Wen Yuan asks, concerned. Wei Wuxian's eyes widen as he touches his cheek and realizes there are indeed tears streaming down his face.

What am I doing? He wonders as he's reminded of every single goodbye shared between him and Lan Zhan, one more painful than the next. Each time he knew it wasn't the end, though. He knew they'd meet again. He couldn't understand what made Lan Wangji so special to the point of missing him even when he was safe and hanging out with his siblings, but he treasured that feeling.

Now it's completely different. Lan Wangji isn't leaving because he needs to or wants to. He's leaving because Wei Wuxian rejected him and shut him out.

"Xian-gege?" Wen Yuan asks again, patting his cheek and Wei Wuxian steps forward.

He doesn't know if it's the new bond formed between Lan Wangji and A-Yuan, or the respect he's shown towards the Wens since he got to the Burial Mounds. It might just be the fact that if Lan Zhan unsheaths his sword now, he would be gone for a long time.

Maybe it's something else entirely.

"Yes!" Wei Wuxian blurts out before he can think much about it, disturbing the quiet.

Lan Wangji stops but doesn't turn around and Wei Wuxian is grateful for it. He has a thick face but, he'd rather do this without Lan Zhan's eyes on him.

"Yes," He says breathlessly. "Yes, I accept your proposal."

What? He can't believe he said it.

"What?" Lan Wangji forgets all his manners and spins around so fast his neck cracks. "What do you mean?"

I don't know? Wei Wuxian almost wishes a spirit would come out and drag him into a pit, his heart leaping inside his chest. "Yes." He repeats. "I'll marry you, Hanguang Jun."

Lan Wangji stares at him, speechless and Wei Wuxian rushes forward, taking one of his hands on his own. “I’m stupid,” He starts, smiling. “I’m shameless and I can be really clueless sometimes but there’s no denying how I feel.” He swallows, “Watching you walk away hurt just as much as knowing you wouldn’t come with me in Qionghe road. I need you by my side, Lan Zhan. I also wouldn’t marry anyone else.”

“Wei Ying...” Lan Wangji whispers and slowly leans in, resting his forehead against Wei Wuxian’s, letting out a sigh of relief.

His voice sounds so vulnerable and yet unbelievably soft that Wei Wuxian giggles, caressing his knuckles.

“Does that mean Brother rich’s staying for dinner?” Wen Yuan is the one to break the comfortable, almost intimate silence. Wei Wuxian laughs and stares at Lan Wangji with pleading eyes, but a fierceness that shows how sure he’s about his decision.

If you’re willing to, he seems to be saying, just like Lan Zhan did earlier. You can stay if that’s what you want.

“Hmn.” Lan Wangji replies, tender and hopeful, bringing the child into the hug. “I will stay.”

They walk back together and Wen Yuan makes sure to tell Lan Wangji about the food that’s been cooked for tonight, complaining about how hungry he feels. Hanguang Jun smiles gently at him all through it, as though he’s really looking forward to it, his hand wrapped around Wei Wuxian’s waist.

When they finally reach the Demon-Slaughtering Cave, Wen Qing regards them with a surprised look and opens her mouth to ask when her eyes slowly track the movement of Wei Wuxian’s wrist and she sees Lan Wangji’s headband tied around it. Being such an important clan member on the past, she can immediately tell what it means and her sly smile widens as she bows down to them.

“A-Niang,” She gestures towards her brother who’s serving a few elders and he comes over immediately. “Get another plate. Second young master Lan is our special guest.” Wen Ning looks confused but nods and bows down to Lan Wangji before running to the place they use as a kitchen.

Wei Wuxian carefully puts Wen Yuan down and the kid goes straight to his grandmother, climbing her lap happily to start eating.

“Congratulations, Wei Wuxian.” Wen Qing says, still amused and Wei Wuxian turns red, wanting to hide his face on the crook of Lan Wangji’s neck. “and second young master Lan.”

“Thank you, Wen-gunya.” Lan Wangji says, smiling back and he takes Wei Wuxian’s hand in his. “Wei Ying must be hungry.” He explains, leading him to a table.

And after they’re settled down and the Wens thank Wei Wuxian for all he’s done since rescuing them from the Jins while Lan Wangji gazes at him with adoration in his eyes, Wei Wuxian feels like they can do this. Tomorrow he might have to travel to Cloud Recesses with Lan Wangji to give notice to his family about their marriage and things might be rough sometimes, but today, with Lan Wangji smiling at him and eating quietly, telling him to stop drinking so much wine and to not speak during a meal, he allows himself to feel hopeful.

They’ll have time to think about the future. Right now the present is all they have and he finds he couldn’t be happier about it.

BONUS

“Also, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian says when they’re cuddling in his bed after the end of that long day. It must be almost nine o’clock now because Lan Wangji seems to be getting drowsy. “You were so bold when you proposed to me! Where did you learn that?”

It’s a joke obviously, he couldn’t begin to imagine Lan Wangji reading romance novels back in Gusu, but Lan Wangji takes it seriously and freezes, embarrassed, “...Xiongzhan said I should try a direct approach” He says after a moment of silence.

Wei Wuxian tries to hold back his laughter but fails miserably at the prospect of Lan Xichen cheering him on and helping him propose to Yiling Laozu, “Zewu Jun?! I didn’t know he was a love expert.”

To his amusement, Lan Wangji cringes and furrows his eyebrows, shaking his head slightly, “He is not.”

Wei Wuxian snorts and hugs him tighter, leaving a trail of kisses all the way from his neck to his jawline, ending with a peck on his lips. “At least it worked, right?”

Lan Wangji’s frown melts away. He caresses his face and kisses him again, leaving him breathless. “Hmn. I would do it again if it means I get to be here with Wei Ying.” He says.

And it’s so honest, so brave that Wei Wuxian can’t help but fall deeper in love with him, finally naming the feeling he hadn’t recognized before, “I love you, Lan Zhan.” He whispers, memorizing the way Lan Wangji’s lips open in a surprised gasp before a smile stretches across his face and he says it back because of course he does. He wants to say it everyday, wants Wei Wuxian to know he’s loved.

Later when Lan Zhan falls asleep and the only thing Wei Wuxian can see are the lights the Wens worked so hard on earlier, he laughs again, replaying the day in his head, so unique and special. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

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