#end of the rope

[nevertheless-moving]

Considering the amount of emotional and moral nuance he managed to muster up immediately post Guanyin temple (despite having a terrible week and zero good role models) AND considering his front row seat to the dissection of Jiang Wanyin and Wei Wuxian’s downfall, I think that in a time travel fix-it, Jin Ling would actually be pretty successful at brute forcing yunmeng family therapy.

I mean he'd probably cry, but even that would be good! Because 1) modeling negative male emotions beside anger, and 2) Oh shit that’s shije’s kid we made Shije’s son cry, fuck, fuck! Bam! Instant high ground! Also he has the most authority of any second gen character by virtue of the fact that he could pull “DO YOU WANT MY MOM TO DIE??? BECAUSE YOU TWO ACTING LIKE MORONS IS WHAT GOT MY MOM KILLED! NOW SIT DOWN AND SPIT OUT ALL YOUR FUCKING SECRETS OR MY MOM WILL DIE AND I’LL BREAK YOUR LEGS!!” It would work! Tell me it wouldn't work!

Not to mention once he gets a few sect leader years under his belt, he might be the best person to manage a fix-it, in general. He's got perspective. He's got political training. Others might get too caught up on the specifics of the Wen remnants or the Ying Tiger Tally or Vengeance against One Person or Another — Jin Ling is critiquing the basic structure of how Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are living their lives and he's getting away with it.

He would even be good at dealing with Jin Guangyao, the slipperiest motherfucker in the timeline. Jin Ling's got as good a handle as anyone on his motivations, and he has sincere (if messy) affection for him, which would hit Guangyao right in his weak spot. Depending on your headcanons it may or may not be in vain, but he's got a real chance of getting the man to set some more modest and less destructive life goals.

Similarly, I think he'd do a pretty decent job at a harsh-but-fair critique of Xichen's neutrality and Mingue's rigidity and Huissang's delibrate uselessness, though getting them to listen would be more of a crapshoot.

All of this makes it especially funny how badly he would handle Wangxian.

For context: Wei Ying and Hunguang-jun are not just the gayest people Jin Ling has ever met, they are the gayest people he's ever HEARD of.

He wouldn't want to bring it up. He wouldn't mean to. He doesn't want to talk about it. But when he inevitably calls Wei Ying a slur only to be met with genuine bafflement? Jin Ling would completely lose his shit.

Because I don't think Wei Ying is going to get offended, or defensive, or have a response that his nephew could coherently mock. Wei Wuxian thinks 'hey these time traveling guys are actually pretty funny!' Him and Whom? Not even a serious topic of contention. You got me for a second, haha.

Jin Ling would break. Wei Ying eventually says something the effect of "I'm straight? Obviously?" and Jin Ling would nod once, start screaming, then climb across the table to strangle him.

It's — look. How do you fucking explain that all of the worst moments of your life were, in someway or another, characterized by Wei Wuxian and Lan Wanjii being FLAMBOYANTLY into one another.

The man who saved his life also killed his father and Jin Ling stabs him but it feels awful and — ok Lan Wanjii is cradling Wei Wuxian tenderly. Ok they're just going to go. They're leaving like that. Hunguang Jun was — is — was the Yiling Patriarch's widow, so that's another layer to add onto everything else. Hunguang-Jun is visibly expressing emotions with his face and voice and Jin Ling is going to go throw up now

Jin Ling's kidnapped at the burial mounds and everyone’s lost their spiritual energy and all his friends and family are going to die and — those two are smiling at eachother. They're telling inside jokes. They're holding hands.

Jin disciples (his own clans disciples) just shot at him and and Xiao-shushu really is what people sa— WEI YING SHOUTS ABOUT WANTING TO FUCK LAN WANJII

THEY ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF BEING KIDNAPPED AND HE DOES THIS

Jujiu is bleeding from the stomach and crying he's bleeding and crying his jujiu is doing that and Xiao-shushu caused it and his whole life is a lie and Hunguang Jun and the Yiling Patriarch are visibly groping in a corner.

And then they never stop groping again. Forever.

So yeah, I'm quite confident that if Jin Ling had to be even peripherally involved with coaching Wei Wuxian through a bisexual awakening and homoerotic courtship, he would explode. He would black out with rage. He'd make an honest and embarrassingly unsuccessful attempt at killing Lan Zhan. He would walk into a lotus pond and stay there until he drowned. He'd start heavy drinking. He'd punch a random passerby in the dick.

In conclusion, Need More Jin Ling Time Travel Fics

[feroluce]

And with that, we've finally hit 40 fics in the henghill tag!!

[hottakehoulihan]

End of the Rope

Characters behave recognizably canonically: Yes. Not abandoned incomplete: Complete Engaging (Funny/cool/thoughtful/feels): Cool/thoughtful/feels. Do I recommend it: Yes. Curbstomp, Cuddles, Crack, Cyoot, Concept?: All of the above? Mostly concept and curbstomp.

Premise: Pillbug. Things are bleak for Taylor. Her trigger finds her joining the Wards in desperation because she needs money to keep Danny alive. Things went very wrong. She visits Emma in the hospital whenever she can. Sophia's legally not supposed to interact with Taylor but does and bureaucracy bullshit makes this hard to fix. Taylor's power is strange, mostly lending an unpredictable boost to the capabilities of other capes and leaving Taylor wheezing and faint or comatose. ...but she can't stop. She needs the money.

There are hints, however, that Taylor's trauma and her power are very different and much stronger than anyone knows. Don't let the grim beginning deter you; the ride is worth going on. Spoilers ahead:

(Some of those aforementioned hints are that the writing is intentionally not chronological; we get snippets from the future and flashbacks from the past.)

First, before I spoil things? I feel like this had a satisfactory beginning, middle, and end, and the end isn't misery-porn. I've seen this fic described as "Hurts so good" and I would not use those words but I did enjoy it quite a bit.

Spoilers are coming; maybe stop with the above.

...

I'll natter a bit to leave space and then dive in.

This is the penultimate spoiler warning.

This is a rewrite/update/repair of the story that was once, apparently, a snippet thread. And now it's whole. I've put the artist as "Slider214" because I think that's who the author is, but there are hints that either the author went by a different name (TemporalKnight is who I thought but no that is an extra chapters thing) before, or the original author was someone else (AnothVortex), or the original effort was somewhat collaborative.

Anyway. I suspect that [snip] Slider/Slider214/TemporalKnight are all one person who did the bulk of the writing and rewrite/concatenation/repair. Thanks be to them all.

Our woobie Taylor is known by the capename "Braid" at the beginning of this story

spoiler warning final. Stop already.

And then by Isis later. Because she's insanely strong. Either her shard had the function of cannibalizing other shards and harvesting their energy or she's got a meta-function, but she's essentially a shard-based vampire who can eat your soul and/or power and use that power to get stronger or to reanimate Old Yeller.

I read this on SB and ignored the chatter/side stories because they're disruptive and I'm not good at swapping 'voice' when dealing with an author change, but I see the story's on AO3 too and I see that the side-stories (mostly by other authors but those other authors are names I think I remember fondly) are there and conveniently collected at the end so I'll read it there next time.

Because I'll be rereading this.

I wanted more, but it wrapped up quite nicely and ended where the author intended so I don't get to complain. : )

I want more like this.

Strong endorsement from me.

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

I am incredibly serious right now when I beg you all, please, and if you have Twitter or Tiktok or whatever to please spread the word: click on an author's profile on Ao3.

You want to know if an author has written more? Want to know if they're still writing? Want to see more from them? Want to know if they've written a trope or kink or sex scenario you enjoy?

Click on their name. And look at their profile.

I cannot tell you how many times in the last six months someone has read a new or newer fic of mine and said they (a new reader who has read nothing else I've done) "can't wait to see what you do next!" I've written 50+ fics and over a million words already.

"I don't know if you're still writing..." click on my profile. I am. I literally wrote a 128k+ fic for that ship last month.

"Would you ever do X?" "Please do Y!" I already did. Click on my name and look at my works.

Archive of our Own is a library. It's an archive. Not social media. It is your responsibility to fight back against the laziness that corporate algorithms have trained into you.

Click my author name. Just click it. Just click it.

Before you demand more, or ask if a writer will do XYZ, or wonder if the author still writing, or anything - click on their profile. Click on the author's profile.

I'm not trying to be mean or condescending or anything like that. I'm just exhausted. It's disheartening and frustrating to repeat myself ad nauseam, because someone couldn't take thirty seconds to do the tiniest bit of work to see if I've written lately, if I've written more for their ship, or scan my works to see if I've written what they're asking for. Please. Please. I'm begging.

Click the author's name, and explore before you ask.

[dwuerch-blog]

Overloaded?

My circuit breaker kept tripping, so I alerted my electrician. He showed up to save the day for me. I took him to my master bathroom from where the issues started. It took him seconds to determine the problem and to school me. “That hairdryer –1875 watts. That heater – 1500 watts. Too much at one time. It’s not your circuit breaker. If you must use the heater at the same time, get an extension…

[ninjasmudge]

silly maid shit, late for the maid hype

[muleumpyo]

"Eddie! No! Eddie!"

"Are you going to dig through thirty feet of wet mud with your bare hands?"

[pianokantzart]

"He's afraid of everything. He's a little awkward, every so often he gets a little aggressive... he's very complicated."

Hearing Matthew Fogel describe Luigi like that, plus some of the expressions in the concept art, has me hoping that at some point (in a very reasonable set of situations) Luigi's going to snap Charlie Kelley style.

[valtsv]

my 5 year plan is i find a weird egg and bond for life with the dragon that hatches from it

[nevertheless-moving]

End of The Rope: MDZS AU #8

mdzs au where the junior quartet accidentally activate a rouge cultivator's array and send themselves back in time — post-sunshot, pre-Yiling Patriarch era.

Naturally they seek out Wei Wuxian, the only person they know who might be able to undo the absurdly complex thing.

plot device sidebar: there's a massive yao carcass in the middle of the array — clearly the power source is death based. The four start taking sketches (Mostly Jingyi). Jin Ling swats at a fly, killing it. Eventual cultivation math reveals that the design was ridiculously overpowered. The inventor probably sent himself to the Neolithic era. Hopefully that's — hopefully that's what he was going for because, yeah, this was not designed for round trips. More plot from that later.

Wei Wuxian, currently drinking and pretending that he's avoiding helping with Lotus Pier's reconstruction out of arrogance instead of inability is deeply amused to receive a visit from four miscellaneous cultivators — who he should probably recognize, right? they're the same age as him, wouldn't they have fought in the campaign? I mean his memory is bad but, no his memory is probably bad enough to completely forget these guys. Whatever.

Alright so two Lans, a Jin, and some other sect (Nice guan — sect heir, maybe?) cultivators are here for his help with something important and private that only he can do (weird, but not completely unimaginable. Something too dark for upstanding cultivator's hands?). They really should go to Jiang Cheng for requests, but, eh. He'll hear them out.

They did , in fact, first seek audience with the Yunmeng Jiang Sect Leader for just that reason. They were greeted by the sect leader's sister and, well. No one had the heart to make fun of Jin Ling for stammering briefly, then turning and running away. They figured they could probably find Wei Wuxian somewhere that sells wine. It didn't take very long.

Here's the thing, Wei Wuxian thinks, staring at the four once they are assured of the room's privacy.

These guys, for all their earnest, off-hand flattery, for as much as they addressed him respectfully, could not be less impressed with him.

One second into the conversation and the Jin is ruthlessly mocking him for his corpse bride attendants with a classic Jin sneer. "What, you don't have any living friends to hang out with?" But he's really not scared, honestly, it's not just posturing, which could mean he's stupid but — also he doesn't seem super mean spirited?? Maybe's he's reading friendliness because the tone is so much like Jiang Cheng when he's joking. Kind of disturbing how similar it is. He kindof wants to ruffle his hair.

The Green one is either joining in an admittedly hilarious bit or defending Wei Wuxian? "I think it's nice! Giving the poor souls a chance to — oh, wait — is it supposed to be intimidating? Oh wow, that's kindof sad, isn't it?"

Lan One, also joining in, absolutely no trace of fear (since when were fucking Lans so at ease around demonic cultivation): "Please disregard my companions. I think it could be very intimidating, to the right sort of visitors, Senior Wei." Senior? Am I even older than you?

Lan Two, a little nervy, but also sitting down and pouring himself a drink?!?: "Kindof over the top though right? I mean, this is exactly the sort of thing you're going to be embarrassed by in —"

"Jingyi! You can't just—"

"What! I'm right! This is totally the sort of 'oh look how evil and scary I am' showmanship that he's going to look back on in 20 years and —"

If the complete and utter disregard of his reputation wasn't enough, they brought him a bribe! Spicy, edible, bribes! And wine! Lans bringing him WINE!

It's crazy, it's definitely crazy — but considering all that — he's almost prepared to believe that might actually be who they say they are, once they start explaining.

Wei Wuxian of course doesn't let them explain much — he knows just enough of time travel theoreticals to know that it either explodes horribly or doesn't actually fix your past mistakes. Until he looks over their notes and figures out what kindof time magic it is they should keep any major changes to themselves — seriously Jin you can destroy your soul with this shit. He'll erase his memory if he has to but — fuck.

He wants. He wants the future where no one's scared of him anymore, not really, not to where they can't sit and share a table with him like a normal person. Where he teaches guest lectures to little Lans and Lan Zhan apparently trusts him enough to help take care of his son as a kid (BABY LAN ZHAN SON! LAN ZHAN HOW ARE YOU SO GOOD ! WHAT A PERFECT YOUNG MASTER YOU RAISED!!") And Shije's son makes fun of him with Jiang Cheng's voice and... he wants.

Which double means they can't explain the terrible things they obviously want to tell him because damn he did not expect to live, what, 20, 30 more years?? Wow! Lan Zhan's not even married yet, and his son is probably 20, so, yeah. Lan Zhan would probably have a super long, elegant courtship — no, no don't tell me. His wife has to be perfect, for you to be such an upstanding young growth — I SAID DON'T ANSWER MY QUESTIONS DO YOU WANT TO TURN LOTUS PIER INTO A CRATER?!?!

Identity Confirmation Aside: Headcanon that Wei Wuxian can in some fashion or another do the genetic stesting thing that fierce corpse's apparently do (ala Nie Mingue's corpse in the Guanyin Temple), which is one way he 'programmed' his armies to attack certain clans and leave alone others. Mildly satisfied that drinking the Jin/Jiang blood was enough to scare them — and ugh, she seriously ended up marrying a Jin?? — okay, okay I won't insult your father! Yeesh. Identity Confirmation Aside Aside: The juniors were less freaked about him drinking blood (they've seen him do that before), and more freaked about their young (oh god is he younger than Zizhen) FLAMBOYANTLY CUTSLEEVE uncle licking Jin Ling's wrist and making WAY too intense eye contact. He was going for demonically intimidating but considering they've all seen him 'cleaning' Lan Wanjii's hands for him after getting street food it came off kindof... yeah. Jingyi gleefully plans on using this against them both at some point in the future. Jin Ling adds another bulletpoint to the Wei Wuxian specific trauma list.

Jin Ling Meta From this AU

My MDZS AU Masterlist

[feroluce]

Boothill draws his gun. Shoots.

Another body drops, adds to the pile. Black armor, orange visor, red tie. Dan Heng feels like he's been watching him do this forever, from this strange impossible angle where his eyes swing and veer like a camera on a track between blinks.

The corpses fall atop each other, become indistinguishable. Black, streaked through with orange and red. Boothill draws his gun, shoots.

Black, orange, red.

The pile grows.

Dan Heng feels himself smear across the air, lines blurring and edges bleary, vision like a cataract. There is black as far as he can see, Boothill’s fans whirring and churning as far as he can hear. His syrupy, soggy brain tells him he smells gunpowder, metal, steam. Boothill's voice is strangely silent between his sharp steely teeth.

The pile surrounds.

It mixes, melds, roils, a rush-in like a crashing wave catching Boothill in its current. It sticks to him, black-on-black, tangles in his spurs and claws its way up his legs even as he kicks at it. Tendrils of it twine upward, around the holster of his useless revolver, between the brass-knuckle joints of his hands. Boothill is pulled down, pulled forward, fighting to resurface and keep his head above. The thickness of it is enough to suffocate.

The gallows awaits them.

Boothill is hauled to it, kicking, thrashing, clawing, silent-screaming, never one to go down easily. The mass of black-orange-red crests, swells, the tide of it ties tight around his neck like a noose, Boothill is dragged up, up, up, forced onto tiptoe, struggling to stay aground until he's hanging, struggling to draw air with every harsh and strangled breath-

Dan Heng jolts awake, flails, eyes unseeing as he desperately claws at his turtleneck until a finger catches the edge just right and pulls one zipper down. His chest is heaving.

Metallic boots swinging freely haunt his vision until the ceiling of the archives comes into view, lit floor painting it soothing blue. Dan Heng watches the waves until his heart stops its staccato, until his lungs ease their violent fluttering.

He rolls over onto his left side as soon as he can stomach the motion, unlocking his phone and scrolling up the chat already on the screen to his last received message.

Three months.

It's been three months since the sudden violent death of Oswaldo Schneider. Three months since Boothill's bounty nearly doubled, went from wanted alive posted in Pier Point and along all major trade routes, to wanted dead or alive on every single planet the IPC can flaunt their power over.

Three months since a voice message, “I have somethin’ I wanna tell ya…not like this, though. Face-to-face. I wanna do it right,” followed by several seconds of silence that sound like a war.

“…I hope I'll find ya again when this all blows over.”

Dan Heng switches apps, pulls up the IPC's real-time most wanted list. Boothill's information sits at the top. Still at large.

Still not captured. Still alive.

Dan Heng fixes his turtleneck, situates his quilt over his shoulders and pulls it up to his ears. Listens to the whirring white noise of the archive and all of its equipment.

He doesn't take his eyes off the screen as he quietly waits for sleep to reclaim him.

[wtftaylr]

some 'on the boat back from fortification hill' goofs. This looks like the beginning of a beautiful one-sided friendship

[sansainthesnow]

And I want you to know, and to feel in your soul, that someone has come and gone. ALICENT HIGHTOWER APPRECIATION WEEK 2024 DAY FOUR → fashion • change • colours

[on-the-clear-blue]

To help boost relations with the people of Amity Park, Danny (with the help of Sam and Tucker) starts a podcast.

---

Tucker, sitting across from Danny in an abandoned house: So, continuing where we left of last episode before we were rudely interrupted by an overgrown man child dressed up like a vampire...Phantom, is it true that yoy are a sickly Victorian child that died at the ripe age of 12?

Danny, eye twitching at the comment: No...no I am not...sorry why do people think this?

Tucker, grinning ear to ear: oh, it's the frail weak voice and sad wet kitten energy.

---

Sam, looking up from her phone, bearly holding back laughter: Now for the question segment of the show...this one is coming from...Dashtom4life asking "if not twink why twink shaped?"

Danny, pained look on his face: Not...not a twink, I swear to the ancients I am not a twink.

Tucker, on the edge of loosing it: I-I don't know Phantom...G-Got a snatched waist...

---

Just the idea of Danny starting the podcast so he can help the people better understand ghosts and how they do things only for it to be derailed in the second episode to be 30 straight minutes of Sam and Tucker ragging on Danny and arguing about things that barely pretain to ghosts.

After Danny gets over the exasperation of having his podcast getting taken over, he gets a 10 minute weekly segment for talking about space.

(Jazz finds out later, and after a little bit of convincing, she gets roped into doing psyche evals on ghosts.)