#6k words in and I haven't mentioned the hat QAQ

[anyrchyangel]

MDZS fanfic sensitivity beta

Hi~ I’m Ana

I’m,,,very bad at Tumblr >.< but I am writing a fic in the mdzs fandom and would really love a sensitivity beta to look over some of my canon references and use of Chinese terms. I’m very new to the wuxia/Xianxia genre and I don’t want to accidentally say or use a term that offends or misrepresents the genre.

Beta-ing is hard work and I’d never expect anyone to sign up to beta without having first peeked at what they’d be working on, so I’ve placed the first chapter of my fic down below.

Some disclaimers/primers: this fic is a crossover between Kimi no na wa/Your Name and mdzs--you don't have to have seen Your Name to follow along, but it wouldn’t hurt to know the plot I am ripping off >.< It includes body swapping and a major character death (if we count wwx dying and coming back to life as mo xuanyu as actually dying...) and for some reason, I have made everyone witches...yeah. Sorry >.< WangXian is the main (and kind of only) ship! Rated T solely because I am incapable of not cussing. I don't plan on writing any smut or explicit scenes for this series <,< (...for now.)

Anyways, here's chapter one of the series. Please let me know if you’d be interested in beta-ing for me! I really want to polish this fic before posting it on ao3 or anything >.<

he who swallowed a falling star

chapter one [everything must have a beginning]

Mornings have never once been Wei Wuxian’s friend. He hates mornings—he hates the sharp light of dawn and the cacophony of noise that comes with the world waking. He much prefers the night, the quiet and stillness, the ambience and mystery. There’s no mystery in the mornings—there’s only groggy musings as one cracks open their eyes to the stinging light of day and wipes away crust from their lashes. His body always violently protests to waking—sleep is so precious! It’s calming and good and nice and to be forced awake is among the greatest tragedies of mankind.

Except…except this morning he doesn’t feel like groaning and burying his head into his pillow. This time, his body actually feels sort of…good? That can’t be right. No one feels good in the mornings; the only ones who do are sociopaths and masochists.

And yet as he stretches awake with a yawn, his limbs feel light and his mind feels rested. So much so that his surroundings are immediately clear.

He has absolutely no idea where in the world he is.

He’s in a bed, at least that much is clear—a very soft bed with sheets that smell like sandalwood and covers with textured silk. Exquisite fabric, he’d never so much as been allowed to touch something so expensive before—he has a knack for putting stains where formerly there were none, so all of his own clothes and sheets are of durable fabrics. Stains add character! There’s a story behind every stain…not always an exhilarating story but a tale, nonetheless.

The room in which the bed he is resting on is absurdly clean. So clean as to seem clinical, or maybe decorative, as if he’d stumbled into a dollhouse meant for display purposes only. It’s lovely, a pretty screen separating the bed from the sitting area, decorated with an elegant painting of mountains bathed in mist. The furniture is expensive and luxurious and just looking at how nicely it’s all been cared for makes Wei Wuxian break out into hives. What even is the point of owning furniture if you’re not going to use it?

He taps his chin and tries to remember the night before. Just how much liquor had he drunk to find himself warming someone else’s bed? Had he even been drinking last night? Shit…maybe he should take shijie’s advice and cut back a bit. His eyes wander to the finger tapping away and he pauses because…well that really doesn’t look like his finger. Or his hand. Or his arm.

He scrambles to the nearest reflective surface—a basin of water in a porcelain bowl that’s probably more expensive than everything he owns combined. The face that looks back at him is…breathtakingly beautiful. Skin the color of white jade, softer than the inner petals of a peony, silky midnight hair draped down broad shoulders to rest at the small of his back, and bright golden eyes somewhere between the shade of the sun as it reflects on ice and wheat dancing in a breeze upon a gilded field.

It’s so beautiful that it narrows down the theories currently running through his head down to two: A) he has died and (mistakenly) ascended to heaven to live the rest of eternity as the most beautiful angel to have ever existed, or B) he’s dreaming. B) seems more likely, especially since the likelihood of Wei Wuxian going to heaven is probably somewhere in the negatives. Plus, witches don’t go to heaven…or technically even believe in heaven. Not to say that there isn’t an afterlife but—he’s rambling. His mind is whirring with so many thoughts that even he can’t keep up with them all.

“Huh.” Oh this man’s voice is so deep and rich that Wei Wuxian’s spine tingles at the sound. “Shit, even his voice is beautiful.”

He hums a few nonsensical notes just to listen to the different octaves; a deep voice, but a melodic one. He wonders if this person is a singer—he certainly has a lovely voice for singing. His eyes wander around the room, searching for…well he’s not really sure. His own body, perhaps? Proof that this is a dream? Or maybe signs of spellwork gone incredibly wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time one of his experimental enchantments went awry.

He starts rummaging through drawers and opening doors, hoping to learn more about the person whose body he now possesses. The handsome stranger is astoundingly boring. Not a speck of dust anywhere or a book out of place—even the poetry on this person’s shelf is…bland, at best. He tosses open the closet, hoping for literal or figurative skeletons. Someone this perfect can’t possibly exist in real life. Maybe instead of a dream this is a hallucination—Wei Wuxian has trouble believing that his active mind would conjure someone so dull but, well even he has off days. Or nights, he supposes. Is it night where he’s dreaming? Doubtful, given his sleep schedule but—he’s rambling again.

Within the closet hangs a full-length mirror, and he pauses in his rummaging to admire the body of the most boring person he’s…well they haven’t technically met, have they?

He’s even more beautiful in the crystal-clear reflection, tall and toned with arms that should be illegal. Wei Wuxian grins and quickly strips off his outer robes (so white that they remind him of mourning robes. He gets distracted when he imagines the scene he must have made whilst asleep—so ethereal and white and pure); the image that greets him is ridiculous. Abs that could cut steel on skin the color of flawless white porcelain, not a blemish in sight. His fingers dance across the muscle, laughter bubbling out of him. Oh what a sound—this gege really is perfection given flesh, isn’t he?

He smiles at his reflection and conjures as many funny faces as he can come up with. Well if he’s stuck in an angel’s body, he might as well have some fun, shouldn’t he?

.

.

.

Wei Wuxian bounds across the halls, chased by the knowledge that he is most definitely late for breakfast. Dawn has already segued into late morning, and if he wants any sort of meal before lessons, he will have to sprout wings and fly across the residence—an idea he’d actually toyed with before, but enchantments that alter the flesh are too finicky and he quite likes keeping all his fingers and toes.

He mentally prepares himself to face the routine “How could you have slept in so late!?” from Jiang Cheng and the “A-Xian, are you not sleeping well?” from Yanli and the knowing smile from Jiang Fengmian, matched only by the scathing glare from Madam Yu that has accompanied every breakfast he can remember having at Lotus Pier. To which he will smirk and tease Jiang Cheng, complain and pout to Yanli, return Jiang Fengmian’s smile and cautiously avoid Madam Yu’s gaze.

Wei Wuxian loves his morning routine, even if it doesn’t technically count as having happened in the morning.

“How do you always manage to sleep in so late!?”

Ah, Jiang Cheng is so predictable—Wei Wuxian loves that about him.

“I was having the best dream!” He responds as he flops onto his mat at the table, shoveling food into mouth as fast as he can pour extra chili sauce onto everything.

“Oh? What about?” Jiang Fengmian’s smile is no less endearing for being as predictable as Jiang Cheng’s anger—perhaps even more so because of it.

“Hmmm,” he pauses in stuffing his face to try and remember his dreams, but the haze of sleep has yet to lift, “huh—I can’t actually remember?”

“How do you know it was a good dream if you can’t even remember it?” Jiang Cheng’s sneering makes him smile, bits of rice on display for his favorite (and only) brother.

“I don’t have to remember every detail to know that it was a good dream!”

It’s true—although he can’t remember anything of what he’d dreamt, the feeling of joy lingers, even as the fog of sleep lifts under the light of day.

“Here, A-Xian, have some lotus seeds. I saved some for you.”

He gulps down some tea to clear the sticky rice from his teeth and perches at Yanli’s elbow with his lips parted, her eyes crinkling into adorable crescents as she pops a lotus seed into his mouth.

“A-Li.” Even on the best of days, Madam Yu’s tone could strip paint from the walls, varnish from the wood within the halls; it was like listening to the crack of a whip, or the rumbling of thunder. Yanli wilts under her strict gaze, eyes dropping to the hands she folds in her lap.

“I am glad to see you back to yourself, A-Ying.” (I’m not sure this is a good way for jfm to address wwx—in the original text he never actually says wwx’s name, but he does call jc A-Cheng; I want to show here that jfm favors wwx) Jiang Fengmian’s tone is the opposite of Madam Yu’s; soft where hers is harsh, calm where hers is agitated. The difference between them is jarring—like the crack of lightning meeting the quiet currents of a flowing river.

“Yes, how very fortunate we are to see you returning to your ways.” Another crack of lightning, this one closer to the babbling brook that is Uncle Jiang, the waters left disrupted and discordant.

“Wait, what?” Wei Wuxian has never feared the thunder, nor the storm.

“You went psycho yesterday and woke at dawn. You even cooked breakfast, but it was bland as shit. It was honestly the most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten.”

Where Yanli wilts under Madam Yu’s glares, Jiang Cheng grows more uncertain, and uncertainty breeds anger within him. Except this anger is often a guise, smoke to the fire that is his worry. Wei Wuxian smiles at him, basking in the concern the same way a flower dances in the breeze.

“Aw, don’t sound too concerned Jiang Cheng.”

The way he snorts and rolls his eyes makes it easier for Wei Wuxian to gloss over the fact that he can’t really remember the day before. An odd gap in his memory, but he shrugs it off and sneaks more lotus seeds from Yanli, who hides a smile behind her hand as she passes him the morning paper.

“Did you see? The comet will be visible on the day of the banquet. Maybe we’ll see a falling star or two.”

“Hmm? Would shijie like falling stars? Maybe I’ll catch one and bottle it up, just for you.”

Her laughter is honey, her smile sunshine; perhaps he should bottle that instead, for use on rainy days or cold winters when the lotuses close their petals.

“A-Cheng, you have lessons to attend to. You do not have the luxury of falling behind.”

“Yes, mother.” The only time Jiang Cheng ever sounds subdued is in deference to Madam Yu, and the sound grates against Wei Wuxian’s ears.

“A-Xian, you should head off to lessons too. You don’t want to be late.” Yanli sneaks the last of the lotus seeds into his hand; he’s convinced she’s on a mission to fatten him up, to which he has zero complaints. If he could gorge on shijie’s lotus seeds for eternity, he would.

“Oh? From what I hear, Wei Wuxian’s time is better spent hunting pheasants and flying kites with the younger witchlings.”

What a nasty storm to deal with so early in the day. He doesn’t fear thunder, but nor does he seek rain.

“The kites were actually an enchantment I was testing out. I finally fixed the talisman to facilitate one’s qinggong[1] to the point of weightlessness. Those kites were—”

“You did what!?”

“There’s no need to shout, Jiang Cheng. The actual enchantment is pretty simple if you cast on the right night. I have a theory that the casting is a lot easier during a full moon, but I managed just fine when it was waning—”

“You—Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng’s cheeks puff with indignation, his face as red as the chili sauce Wei Wuxian slathers on every meal.

“Yes, I’m here!” He answers with laughter, snickering and dodging as Jiang Cheng lunges for him, waving at Yanli as he darts out the room. He’d skip class if he didn’t want to write down another idea for an enchantment in his grimoire, of which he’s about forty percent sure is in his desk…or buried under his other inventions somewhere in his room. Or maybe he left it in the atrium when he was searching for a specific constellation?

Jiang Cheng chases him from the residence, out through the courtyards and down into the docks of Lotus Pier. He smiles and waves at the merchants, eyeing all the pastries and water chestnuts, winking at runny-nosed children from the nearby households. His heart feels both heavy and light—too full to dream of moving and yet so buoyant he might drift along with the next passing breeze.

The giant lake gleams under the light, lotuses dancing and swaying in the wind, the sound of home bustling around him. Wild magic whispers through the air, flows through the undercurrents of the lake, along the waterways for miles and miles until it reaches the ocean. An idea pops into his head to attempt to track the energy, map out the ley lines, but he catches the shadow of a pheasant nearby and pushes the thought down his list of priorities.

He smiles and dodges Jiang Cheng’s attempts to toss him into the lake, grappling each other into headlocks as they make their way towards the lecture halls. He sighs at the idea of another long, boring monologue in spellcraft theory, but the idea of enchanting a few papermen to dance behind the Adeptus keep his steps light. The witchlings always love a good show—perhaps he’ll put on his own little play for them. With the right paper, he might be able to craft a jade rabbit and play the story of Chang’e and Hou Yi. Maybe he could make them sing? A whistle from a witch is a powerful thing. Or he could tell the story of Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods—his head buzzes with ideas, excitement filling his veins at the prospect of researching more of the lost stories of old gods and immortals.

Endnotes:

[1] Qinggong (in most cultivation/wuxia novels) is the art of manipulating qi to walk on water or move across surfaces; it’s also a real technique in Chinese martial arts. Read about it here

If you got this far, thanks for reading! Even if you're not interested in beta-ing, I’d still love to hear feedback! I don’t normally post such long pieces on Tumblr, but I wasn't sure what else to do >.< I hope you liked it!