#so here's a little gift for our precious hanguang-jun

[robinuntamed]

Forward

Wei Ying kisses him and it’s—ah—he can’t think past the frenzied burn of it: fingers in his hair and desperate sucking at his neck and ah, ah, it’s, it’s—all-consuming, and Lan Wangji’s mind was always, ah, the thread that keeps it all together—

Helpless, entirely and rabidly so, helpless, crashing against Wei Ying’s chest and grabbing whatever his shaky hands can find, it’s—it’s all he’s—not even allowed himself to dream, and he, he can’t, can’t possibly, can’t. Breathing… can’t. He’ll never stop, never, not if he has any—he has no choice, nothing to do but keep pushing forward, forward, forward-forward-forward. The tense line of Wei Ying’s abs is overwhelming. The scent at the place where his shoulder meets neck. It’s like he’s drunk, is he drunk, did he drink anything? He can’t imagine ever putting his mouth on anything that isn’t Wei Ying’s skin. The taste is… spicy?

He never… ah, the wall, at his back. Forward or backwards? The whole room is spinning. His head is, is, alight, everything too bright and blistering to the touch. He can’t stop touching. The soft skin beneath Wei Ying’s under-robes, the breathtaking squishiness of the lobe of his ear. Is Lan Wangji just squeezing it? Everything feels three sizes too large and a hundred times too loud. He wants it all, so badly he burns. Burns. Everything burns. If Wei Ying stops touching him something terrible would happen, something catastrophic.

He doesn’t, stop. Good. Lan Wangji doesn’t think he knows how to anymore. A distant part of his brain is saying something incomprehensible about ‘self-control’, and the entire concept is ridiculous. Boring. Anything that isn’t Wei Ying gets shoved out of the way, and in the immediate vicinity is all this Wei Ying, from his fingertips to his hands to his arms to his shoulders, to his neck to his cheeks to his nose to his forehead, to his hair to the nape of his neck to the small of his back, to the un-im-not possible curve of his arse, to his thighs and his knees and his shins and his feet. His feet. Under the socks are Wei Ying’s naked feet. Lan Wangji feels shaky with the knowledge.

He wants down. He wants to be released from the vice grip on his waist (never, never let him go), wants to slide gracefully (ha) to his knees and take those socks off and marvel at every single toe. He wants to kiss his way from the devastating angle of his ankle, up the sheer muscle of his leg, hide his face in the crook of his knee. He wants the whole tour, the entire thing, wants, wants, wants, so much that he forgets to breathe. Forgets to ask. Forgets to remember, because Wei Ying is on him and the wall behind so he doesn’t fall even when he staggers. It’s… too much. Lan Wangji is vaguely aware he’s begging.

It's only half-words. “Plea,” and “hnff,” and “ah-ah-ah,” and. He’d be ashamed, but there’s no room for much besides the aching, scorching thrill of it. The desperation is rising and rising and rising like water, like a flood, rising-rising and he cannot, won’t stop it. It’d be terrifying if he wasn’t exactly this vulnerable every time Wei Ying so much as looks at him. It would be terrifying if he had even an ounce left to care.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying says, solid and blazing-hot at the edge of his consciousness, “Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” like those words alone hold power, are magic. They must be, because the fever in his blood just goes ricocheting all the way up, he’s burning alive and he doesn’t care because Wei Ying is still saying, “Lan Zhan,” and he wants him, he wants him too, and that on its own is already too far. Lan Wangji can’t… can’t.

He tries to speak but all that comes out are aborted little mewls. He’s… drowning in all of this, somehow divested of most of his clothes, and the wall is cold on his shoulder blades and Wei Ying is impossible, hip to hip, grinding in some mindless rhythm that has Lan Wangji’s heart trying to rip out of his chest, clean through. No, it’s not his heart, it’s—ah! Wei Ying’s arms around him, crushing. Mouth right back to what has to be his favourite spot, somewhere under Lan Wangji’s ear, he’d love to say exactly where but he’s melting, his whole mind is melting, and—Wei Ying helps loop Lan Wangji’s leg around his waist. Oh, he’s in the air. On the wall. Oh, he’s… lost, entirely, and the little shivers he can’t stop are only making it more, more, touch, more friction, and he wishes and wishes he could grasp even a tiny bit of what’s happening and he can’t.

“Wei Ying,” he says, miraculously, out loud. Then again, “Wei Ying—bed—”

Wei Ying laughs, and it’s the sweetest and most outrageous sound. How is everything spinning? How is any of it possible. That Wei Ying. Pulling one arm, “Yes, yes,” as if Lan Wangji said the most important thing, as if Wei Ying is also—is also—

They move, they don’t, it’s frightening, and then he hits something soft (a mat? Please be a mat) and then he hits something softer (Wei Ying, Wei Ying, Wei—) and then he hits something hard and his mind snaps.

Open—he’s so entirely open. Wei Ying can ask for anything and he would give it. Wei Ying wouldn’t even need to ask. Lan Wangji is aching to give him: to give, to give, to give, himself and everything he possesses, that he can reach. Attempting to get his limbs back under control, to give—

But Wei Ying doesn’t want him in control right now. His eyes are alight with something fiercer than joy, something unbreakable and unfathomable and just bursting-piping-hot. How can anyone stand it, is beyond him; it doesn’t matter. Wei Ying is looking at him like he’s ravenous. His hand trails gentle lines down Lan Wangji’s bare torso (bare? He’s so bare), and his eyes, his eyes.

“Mine,” he says, and it comes out choked, like a plea. A prayer. Lan Wangji musters all of his strength (currently close to none):

“Yours,” he nods. “All yours.”

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying gasps, and then he’s on him again, and everything else shuts down.

It’s fast and scalding and desperate—

It’s slow and lingering and sweet—

It’s thudding in his chest like a warhorse through a battlefield, rampaging higher-higher-higher-higher—

Wei Ying kisses him and Lan Wangji thinks: yes. This, exactly this.  

[robininthelabyrinth]

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, past 5, part 6 - aka Pastime (with good company) (ao3 link)

Warning: some adult content 

-

Everything was settled.

The marriage date had been set – sadly there was still some time to go, since they’d reached that part of the year where there weren’t any auspicious days for marriage for a while, especially for a marriage like this (they were not getting married on a day that was auspicious for childbirth, no matter how much Wei Wuxian cackled at the thought) – and now all that was left was preparing for the ceremony.

The logistics were a pain, but all parties involved had been determined to hold a single ceremony, both to demonstrate that they were both first, neither above the other, and, as Wei Wuxian had grumblingly put it, to make sure no one was satisfied until they were all satisfied.

The negotiations had gone on forever, representatives of each sect bickering back and forth, but finally, finally, Lan Xichen had conspired with Nie Mingjue and Jiang Cheng behind the scenes and they’d exercised their authority as Sect Leaders to declare the latest version of the marriage plan acceptable.

There was a distinct possibility that they had gotten somewhat intoxicated before making the announcement, but however it had happened, it been made and Lan Wangji was happier for it.

Now, there was only – the wait.

Each of them had agreed that now that the marriage was settled, they would each stay at home to prepare the necessary things for marriage. Technically, only Nie Mingjue needed to pay the bride price, and of course their families would be providing dowries (with lists so long that Lan Wangji grew numb just thinking about it), but they had agreed between the three of them that it would be suitable for them to exchange gifts between themselves.

A sign of their forthcoming affection, but also – and this was Nie Mingjue’s rare insistence on the subject of gifts or etiquette – independence. Nie Mingjue was the husband, of course, and they the brides, and that meant something, even if cultivator sects rarely imposed the sort of requirements on its female cultivators that the common world did, but in his heart Nie Mingjue was a fairly staunch an opponent of unnecessary hierarchy when in peacetime, though whether this was his own inclination or another of the Nie sect’s oddities was less clear. Politically, he was engaged in a fierce fight with the Jin sect, opposed the mere concept of a Chief Cultivator and preferring that the Sects manage themselves as they always had rather than succumb to the order the Wen sect had tried to impose, but his opposition was – as always with the man – genuine, and it was important to him that his brides knew that they were free in their own right, rather than receiving their freedom as a gift from their husband.

(Lan Wangji had thought of their mother when Nie Mingjue had argued the point, his eyes flashing and hand hitting the table to emphasize it, and his heart had overflowed with joy that he was marrying this man above others, this man and Wei Wuxian who did not know rules, both of whom would rather die than cage him; Lan Xichen and even Lan Qiren had been moved by the demand, their eyes suspiciously wet, and Lan Wangji had seen in the way Jiang Cheng rubbed his thumb over Zidian that he, too, was not unaffected.)

Of course, once the principle was agreed upon, they now had to enact it.

Lan Wangji expected that Nie Mingjue would have delegated the initial task of finding gifts for them to Nie Huaisang, reserving the right for a final decision for himself – if it was a Nie sect principle, there might be some element of ritual involved in the unusual gift-giving, some tradition that wouldn’t make sense or be explained until they were safely married in; Qinghe had long had a reputation for being a little bit different from the other sects, and not just in their preference for the saber over the sword.

Wei Wuxian, on the other hand – Lan Wangji expected he was equally hard at work. Perhaps others in his sect believed that he would ask Jiang Cheng for one of the Jiang sect’s treasures, diminished by war but recovered in their victories, but Lan Wangji thought he knew Wei Wuxian better than that: most likely, he had just decided to use the time before the marriage to invent something no one in the world has ever seen before, and contribute that instead.

That seemed far more his style.

As for himself, Lan Wangji followed his own sect’s traditions, taking on the new request with the dignity and solemnity with which it ought to be respected. He had already spent several days in the Lan sect’s treasure room, sorting through each item and considering whether it would fit one or another of his spouses. His uncle, not yet fully reconciled with his decision – his general approval of Nie Mingjue wrestling against his general disapproval of Wei Wuxian – had come to see him several times while he was there; he would never disagree with Lan Xichen on such a serious matter as someone’s life, and never publicly, but his love for his nephew and his concern for Lan Wangji’s well-being drove him to probe repeatedly as to whether Lan Wangji really thought that this marriage would make him happy.

Lan Wangji was very sure it would. He’d only liked two people in his entire life and thought them both untouchable, forever beyond his reach – to now be faced with the possibility of having them both was beyond even his wildest dreams.

…perhaps not his wildest dreams. He’d been having some very interesting ones recently.

At any rate, it was a wise decision on their part to separate, and to stay separate. After all, they would have their whole lives to spend together – it was better to take this precious time before their marriage to reflect on their families, their past, the events and circumstances that had led them to this moment…

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian called, his eyes bright with excitement as he waved and ran forward to greet him. “What a surprise! I wasn’t expecting to see you – what brings you to Yiling?”

Absolutely nothing, in truth.  

There was no reason at all for Lan Wangji to be in Yiling.

He should not be in Yiling: he thought of himself as the patient one of the three of them, suffused with Lan serenity and self-denial, having cultivated long ago the ability to wait forever for what he wanted – none of Wei Wuxian’s impulsiveness or Nie Mingjue’s hot-headedness for him. And yet, of the three of them, Lan Wangji was the one who weakened first.

It was only that he had woken up in the dead of night, alone in the jingshi and abruptly convinced that it was all a dream that had lingered too long, that it would disappear with the morning dew, and he had suddenly needed, urgently, to see one of his future husbands, to confirm to himself once again that this was really happening. And before he knew what he was doing, he had taken Bichen and turned his face to the sky, fleeing to Yiling as the closer and least-bad option –  

At least Wei Wuxian seemed to feel the same way, to judge by the way he insisted on dragging Lan Wangji to and fro throughout the Burial Mounds, reintroducing him to all the Wen sect members that he’d already met on his first visit; only things time, Wei Wuxian would stop to speak to each one with a smile, explaining the situation – just now he had greeted a man with a wave and shouted, “Fourth Uncle, this is Hanguang-jun, Lan Wangji. We’re going to be marrying soon, to Chifeng-zun – all of us together, me, Lan Zhan, and Nie Mingjue.”

“Yes, we know,” the man said, looking indulgent. “You’ve mentioned it a few times.”

To judge from his expression, it was more than a few times.

“You remember them, right?” Wei Wuxian barreled on, utterly undaunted. “Lan Zhan’s been here twice before, and Nie Mingjue is the tall gorgeous one. Not that Lan Zhan isn’t tall and gorgeous – wait. Am I the short one in this relationship?!”

Wei Wuxian was two centimeters shorter than Lan Wangji, who was in turn shorter than Nie Mingjue (who he was sure routinely lied about his height in some misguided attempt to pretend he wasn’t quite as toweringly tall as he was); Wei Wuxian was, in fact, the short one, albeit only by a little.

Lan Wangji exercised his judgment and decided not to comment, offering up only a neutral hum when Wei Wuxian looked at him, aggravated.

“It’s good you’ve got a smart one in your marriage, Wei-gongzi,” the man said, chuckling. “Good at spotting and avoiding traps.”

“Traps..? – hey! Are you saying I’m not the smart one? Lan Zhan, tell him -!”

Lan Wangji hummed again, more to make Wei Wuxian laugh than anything else.

At some point, they settled down in the Demon-Slaughtering Cave, Wei Wuxian running around to fetch tea and some snacks; it was getting to be late in the evening, the journey to Yiling and all the introductions having eaten up most of the day, but tea was always welcome.

After a few moments, Lan Wangji realized that no one else was there – not Wen Ning, nor Wen Qing, nor anyone else – and he frowned. “Is this appropriate?”

“Sure it is,” Wei Wuxian said at once, his response coming a little too fast to be anything other than planned ahead of time. “Obviously it would be inappropriate for either of us to be alone with Nie Mingjue, being as he’s our future husband; we would require a chaperone. However, although we will also be marrying each other, we’re both marrying in as brides, and there’s never been any restriction on brides sharing each other’s company before the wedding.”

Lan Wangji gave him an unimpressed look. “Semantics.”

“Very useful semantics,” Wei Wuxian protested, and pushed one of the snacks – a little radish cake, by the look of it – towards him. “Come on, I want to talk with you, discuss some questions about our marriage, and to do it without being gawked at by one of the Wens. Are you really going to insist that I call one of them in here?”

He would probably call Wen Ning if he called anyone, Lan Wangji thought, and felt a spark of jealousy in his belly. Which was ridiculous, he was the one who was marrying Wei Wuxian, and getting Nie Mingjue in the bargain as well; there was no reason to be drinking vinegar at the thought of Wen Ning. Even if he was the one that Wei Wuxian had defied the cultivation world for, resurrected from the dead at great cost, kept by his side at all times –

“…no,” he finally said, and Wei Wuxian’s smile was brilliant enough for him to almost forget about his not-quite-righteous motives in agreeing to waive propriety. “You had questions?”

“Sure! I mean, how is it going to work? Do we split having him on even and odd days, or do we have just one really big bed –”

Lan Wangji’s ears were burning; he had somehow not expected that the questions would be of this type. He pinned his gaze firmly across the room. “The Unclean Realm is large,” he said. “We will each have quarters of our own.”

“Well, yes, of course. Everyone gets their own courtyard; I was there at the marriage negotiations too, you know. But in terms of the details –”

“Mingjue-xiong is the husband. He will decide.”

“He might be the husband, but it’s not as if we’re not men ourselves,” Wei Wuxian argued. “I may not know that much about being a cutsleeve – Jiang Cheng only managed to find me one spring book in all this time, apparently he’s encountering some awkwardness about buying them – but I have a vivid imagination and plenty of yang energy; I’m not going to wait around in my courtyard to see if he wants to visit or not.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Why would anyone have expected that he would? Why had Lan Wangji ever expected that this conversation wouldn’t leave him simultaneously turned on beyond all belief and also wanting to die of sheer awkwardness?

“I can lend you one, if you wish,” he said, still staring firmly at the wall.

“Lend me one – oh, Lan Zhan! You mean a spring book? For cutsleeves? You have one?”

Lan Wangji had more than one.

His brother had figured out years ago what his inclination was, and anyway the Lan sect prided itself on preservation of information; there had been cutsleeves among the Lan in the past, and they had donated their books to the library upon their deaths the way everyone else had. With Lan Xichen’s help, it hadn’t been too difficult to smuggle some of them back to his quarters to review once he’d realized that his spring dreams were not going to go away without external assistance.

(In the end, the information had only made his dreams more vivid and detailed, but at least he learned enough to be able to stop shamefully smuggling in extra robes every day and taking on additional chores to account for overusing the sect’s laundry.)

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, you have to tell me everything,” Wei Wuxian said, leaning forward, his eyes bright with mischief – mischief, and something just a little bit more. Before, Lan Wangji would have told himself that he was imagining things, but for the first time he thought that he could hope that he wasn’t, that Wei Wuxian wanted him, wanted him as much as Lan Wangji wanted him in turn. “You have to take pity on me; I’ve never even kissed anyone!”

That got Lan Wangji to stop staring at the wall and to turn to stare at Wei Wuxian instead.

Wei Wuxian, the accomplished and even notorious flirt, as he’d seen with his own eyes in their time in the indoctrination camp; who had told him on Phoenix Mountain that he had lots of experience kissing –

“But you said –” he started, then stopped, pressing his lips together when Wei Wuxian started laughing.

“At Phoenix Mountain? You believed me?” Wei Wuxian said with a smile, his eyes curving into crescents. “No, I was just trying to save face. What was I supposed to say? I would have been embarrassed to admit it! Though actually, even though I’ve never kissed anyone myself, I did lose my first kiss right around that time; someone came up to me while I was blindfolded –”

Lan Wangji’s shoulders went up around his ears. “Wei Ying.”

“– the maiden was very forceful, but at the same time very shy, since she waited until I was blindfolded –”

“Wei Ying.”

“– she was so aggressive! Even managed to slip me a bit of tongue –”

“Wei Ying.”

“What? Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian looked delighted at the thought. “Now, now, fair’s fair, I’ve told you, now you have to tell me – have you ever been kissed?”

“…kissed. Once.”

“Oh, you did the kissing?” And now Wei Wuxian’s eyes were narrow, but playfully so – at least, Lan Wangji thought it was playful. Maybe Wei Wuxian was drinking a little vinegar, too. “You don’t mean a childhood kiss, do you? No? A real one, then; that puts you one up on me. When was it?”

Lan Wangji wanted the ground to swallow him up, but – it was no longer a matter that needed to be hidden lest Wei Wuxian hate him forever, a hopeless infatuation that could go nowhere and would be taken to the grave eternally unrequited. They were going to be married.

You could not start a marriage on a lie.

“…Phoenix Mountain.”

“What, really? Huh, that’s a coincidence! You kissed someone right around the time that –” Wei Wuxian paused, and Lan Wangji braced himself. “Lan Zhan. You didn’t.”

Wei Wuxian didn’t sound angry.

Lan Wangji snuck a peak at him – he didn’t look angry, either. He looked delighted.

“You know, Lan Zhan, that was very bad of you,” Wei Wuxian said, pretending to scold but grinning far too wide for it to sound authentic. “You took my first kiss, which I’d been guarding for twenty years! You have no choice but to take responsibility.”

“Mm,” Lan Wangji said, feeling a wave of relief. “Wei Ying is right. Would marriage be sufficient recompense?”

“Now that’s more like it,” Wei Wuxian cackled. “Your first kiss, and mine, and soon we’ll be married…hey, Lan Zhan! We should do it again.”

Lan Wangji’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“Kissing! After all, we wouldn’t want to disappoint Nie Mingjue on our wedding night – we should practice.”

“Practice…kissing.”

“We’re just the brides,” Wei Wuxian reminded him, and suddenly he was closer than Lan Wangji had expected; he was pressed right up against Lan Wangji’s side, and every part of them that was in contact felt as if it was on fire, even though there were layers and layers of cloth between them. “Our job in our marriage is to please our husband, since we’re not exactly going to be bearing him heirs. It’s no harm then, is it, trying to study up in advance on the sorts of things that will please him – that’s why I want to read those spring books you have, Lan Zhan. I want to think about all the things we could do together.”

Lan Wangji’s mouth was dry, and Wei Wuxian’s face filled his eyes.

“But I have to admit, Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian said. “I also – just really want to kiss you.”

Lan Wangji leaned over and pressed his lips to Wei Wuxian’s.

It was better than Phoenix Mountain, when he’d been too aggressive, almost wild in his frenzied need to express himself and yet so new at what he was doing to figure out at first how their mouths would fit together; this time, with the little experience from before, their mouths slotted together naturally, and best of all, this time Wei Wuxian wasn’t just shocked and stiff with surprise in his arms; this time, Wei Wuxian was kissing him back.

Fiercely, even; his hands sliding up into Lan Wangji’s hair as they kissed frantically, Lan Wangji’s own hands on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder and waist.

“Oh, Lan Zhan –” Lan Wangji heard Wei Wuxian groan his name against his lips, voice low and deep, and he was drunk on the sheer joy of it. “Lan Zhan –”

They tumbled down to the ground, Wei Wuxian pulling as much as Lan Wangji pushed, and Lan Wangji was straddling him, the two of them hot up against each other as they kissed again and again – lips and cheeks, faces, necks, wherever they could reach. Lan Wangji had had dreams like this, but nothing was compared to the reality: Wei Wuxian was warm in his arms, vocal with his pleasure, full of little whimpers and moans and his name, rolling around his mouth like fine wine; his legs inched up Lan Wangji’s thighs, urging him onwards even as his hands started exploring his shoulders and giving little tentative tugs of his hair that only made Lan Wangji less restrained because of how unexpected it was.

“Wei Ying…” he growled, applying his teeth to Wei Wuxian’s neck and rumbling with delight when Wei Wuxian threw back his head with a surprise moan of pleasure.

“Lan Zhan, oh, yes – is that how you’d do it for Nie Mingjue, Lan Zhan? I bet it is, I bet you’d love to put your teeth in his neck and mark it up – ah! Yes, like that, more – ”

They had long ago left propriety behind, but they were very quickly getting to the point of being truly inappropriate; the thought was fuzzy in Lan Wangji’s mind, seeming very unimportant – they were getting married soon, after all, and that would be even better than this, because Nie Mingjue would be there, his intense gaze on them both, his hands on them –

“We should stop,” he forced himself to say.

“We will,” Wei Wuxian said, tugging him down for another kiss, his hips arching and rubbing up against Lan Wangji’s. “We will, Lan Zhan, just a little more –”

Much more and Lan Wangji would very quickly be lost, violating his oaths of restraint before marriage; he was very near to the edge as it was.

“We can’t, we have to wait until marriage,” he murmured even as he sucked kisses and left teeth marks on Wei Wuxian’s collarbone. “But we can do something else…”

The Lan sect prided itself on a strict adherence to the rules, on obeying the spirit of the rule and not merely the letter, but there had been since long ago a very particular loophole regarding the rules of restraint – an acknowledgment of reality, really, of the fact that the blood of young men and women ran hot, and that it would be cruel to make a rule that so many would find themselves unwittingly breaking.

Sharing physical pleasure with another before marriage was of course absolutely inappropriate – when it was a man and a woman involved, rather than two men, it came with the loss of chastity, the risk of pregnancy, the ruination of all future hopes; it was reasonable to restrict those who had not yet bowed three times to, at most, touching each only with clothing fully in place.  

If they were not cultivators, that would be the end of it – but they were, and there were more routes to pleasure than the mere physical.

After all, the act of joining together yin and yang was not called dual cultivation for nothing.

Lan Wangji summoned up the qi from his golden core, allowing it to circulate through his meridians as if he were planning to cultivate, and dropped his hand eagerly between their bodies to Wei Wuxian’s dantian, where Wei Wuxian’s own cultivation, his golden core, would respond to his own, their cultivation reacting to each other as a stimulus, sparking pleasure even as they grew stronger. He’d never experienced it before, but he’d heard whispers of how it felt, a rush that was so good that it was nearly addictive and yet soothing as well, a relaxing of the terrible tension, allowing their bodies the peak of pleasure without the physicality of release that was denied to them.

Lan Wangji put his hand on Wei Wuxian’s belly and felt Wei Wuxian groan, his hips arch –

He felt –

Nothing.

[trensu]

Episode 31: The One where Jin Zixun Dies but God at What Cost

So get ready to have your heart ripped out of your chest, guys!!

And we don’t even get Quality wangxiantics to make us feel better HAHAHAHA we get like, 3 breadcrumbs of wangxiantics, GREAT, HAHA.

I’M FINE

TOTALLY FINE

We open the episode with a deceptively tranquil scene of our precious sunshine boy picking lotus seeds

We get some a-yuan time here too!

A-yuan chips a tooth on a not-good seed or smth and wwx takes the opportunity to impart valuable lotus knowledge on his son

Idk what it was

I was too busy awwww-ing at the cute scene to pay attention to the details

Wen ning shows up and chats with his sister!

He’s all, some rando gave me this letter to bring up here!

Wen qing opens up the letter and SURPRISE it’s an invitation for wwx to go to his nephew’s one-month celebration!!!

Wen qing is reading this and is all okay okay good fine but THEN HER EYES GO ALL WIDE

Because the letter is signed by none other than LAN WANGJI

THAT’S RIGHT FOLKS

LWJ PERSONALLY WROTE THE INVITATION FOR WWX

And wq knows that lwj is a VERY IMPORTANT PERSON TO WWX

She gives wwx the letter and wwx is OVERJOYED.

So that was breadcrumb 1. 

Yeah.

And that one was the more substantial breadcrumb.

I’m so sorry

Now we’re in a tassel shop and there are gossipy cultivators

I wouldn’t bring this up but i need to express how UTTERLY OFFENDED I AM

Everyones talking about the jin clan and this celebration right?

And how fortunate the jin family is or whatever

And theN SOME BASIC BITCH GOES AND SAYS JYL IS NOT ALL THAT IMPRESSIVE?

COME HERE AND SAY THAT TO MY FACE, I WILL TEAR YOU TO PIECES WITH MY BARE HANDS, HOW DARE YOU.

You know, i make a lot of threats for someone who has the strength of, like, an earthworm. I should probably stop...

Wwx buys a tassel to go with the actual gift he made for his nephew with his own two hands!!

It’s a set of anti-evil beads!

So he can protect his little nephew even if he can’t be there with him physically!

Wwx is basically perfect in every way and i fall in love with him more every time i see him

Now he and wen ning are chitchatting about the upcoming party and whatever and we get breadcrumb 2.

Wn: when i first saw the jin clan’s invitation, i thought they were up to no good but i guess that jzx is a pretty decent guy! Also, lwj will be there too!!

Wen ning is such a supportive bro. 

HE DIDN’T HAVE TO SAY THAT LAST PART

BUT HE DID

BC EVEN THE UNDEAD CAN SEE HOW MUCH WWX LOVES LWJ

And now we get to see our beloved sunshine boy and his right hand ghost general get ambushed on the way to the party!!

How fun!!

I LIED IT’S NOT FUN AT ALL

THE WHOLE SITUATION IS AWFUL AND I HATE IT

There was a cool bit where wen ning snatches an arrow right out of the air that was just about to hit wwx head on

Bc wen ning is a Soft Boy but soft boys can also be BADASS

I’M GONNA GLOSS OVER MOST OF THIS SCENE

BLAH BLAH JZ IS AN ASSHOLE BLAH BLAH TRIES TO KILL WWX AND FAILS BLAH BLAH

JZX TRIES TO MEDIATE BLAH BLAH FAILS SPECTACULARLY BLAH BLAH WEN NING KILLS HIM BC HE’S OUTTA HIS MIND RN BLAH BLAH

On a happier note, wen ning also kills jz!! YAY, we don't’ gotta deal with that guy anymore

WWX GOES INTO SHOCK FROM THE EMOTIONAL TRAUMA BLAH BLAH

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET, GUYS??

oh god, i might be willing to take back jz if it means jzx doesn’t die this is all so awful why can’t we have nice things

Now we cut to carp tower where jc and jyl are playing with little jin ling in a state of blissful ignorance

So that’s happening and then we see lwj power-walk (aka the lan clan version of running) into the room

Lwj: where is jgy?

Jc: how the hell should i know. Why are you looking for him?

Lwj: has wei ying arrived yet?

Jgy joins the party and lwj starts interrogating him

Lwj: why did the disciples my brother and I bring leave carp tower with jz? Where did they go?

Jgy: hanguang-jun calm down

Okay, firstly he didn’t even raise his voice or speak sharply. Abruptly, maybe, but that’s how he always talks to not-wwx people.

And secondly, DON’T TELL HIM TO CALM DOWN YOU EVIL SMARMY LITTLE GREMLIN, I WILL CUT YOU.

Jgy: they just went to qiongqi way, jzx followed them too…

And then some rando jin cultivator runs in screaming about how the ghost general killed jzx

AND WE SEE JYL’S WORLD FALL APART, OH GOD, OH GOD WHY

We also get reaction shot from lwj

He looks completely stunned. He looks like the sinking “oh no” feeling you get in your stomach when you know something’s gone terribly horribly wrong and there’s nothing you can do to prevent or fix it

AND THAT WAS BREADCRUMB 3!

That’s right folks, that is the entirety of the wangxian time we get in this whole episode

And like, that’s nowhere near the end of the episode

Everything was death and emotional trauma!! And overall Devastatingly Sad Plot times.

Wen sibs and wwx have an emotional confrontation

We get horrifically painful lines like wwx saying that wn is a knife and the knife shouldn’t get punished for the murderer’s actions; and he’s cast himself in the role of murderer

And wq saying basically how the truth doesn’t matter in this situation, what matters is the wn killed jzx and the jins want the wen sibs dead

Wq: i’m sorry. And thank you

JUST KILL ME

And then the wen sibs turn themselves over to carp tower after immobilizing and knocking wwx out

LET ME DIE

EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE MY HEART IS BREAKING

The episode ends with wwx finally breaking through the immobilization and stumbles through the burial mounds

HAHAHAHA I’M FINE, I’M FINE, TOTALLY FINE

Return to Masterpost

[unequippedwit]

An Informal and Incomplete Essay on One Fangirl’s Feelings and Descent into Mo Dao Zu Shi

So, if you’ve even glanced at my blog of late you’ve noticed a lot of dolphin screeching in regards to a series called The Untamed/Chén Qíng Lìng/陈情令.  Or, something else called  Mó Dào Zǔ Shī/魔道祖师.  (Hint, they’re mostly sort of the same thing as The Untamed is MDZS’s live action drama with a whole ass stable of attractive).

Someone on my dash had done a recommendation list of things that they had watched and enjoyed and I made the glorious mistake of looking at the summary given, shrugged my shoulders, and said “Why not?”.  I proceeded to change my entire life simply by turning on my PS4, tap-tapping my way to YouTube, and settling my behind in my easy chair where the cat and my knitting proceeded to fight for space.

I’m not going to say how many hours total that I’ve spent to watching/listening to the various adaptations (the 50 episode drama, the 23 episodes released of the donghua, and the first season of the audio drama), or reading the manhua, or reading the OG novel, but, I am going to say it’s a lot.  Yes, I’ve calculated it and no I’m not telling.  Oh, hecking heck it is a lot.  And, considering that I’ve only really been into it since the beginning of August, well, even I’m impressed and I know how I can get in regards to hyper-fixation.  I’m so glad that I have also dragged my BFF along for the ride.

I can say with some confidence that a part of the reason why I have done a full sprint down into this magnificent madness, as I cackled with glee and mass binge postings of gorgeous fanart, memes, and Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan’s faces, is that I was semi-floundering in the MCU fandom and post-release of Endgame, even more so.  There had been a lingering sense of fatigue and this was needed.  The fandom, for all that it is a fandom with its own faults and no fandom ever escapes them, is refreshing and new and a joy in a way that the MCU has been missing for me for quite some time.

Now, as to what actually kept me engaged I’m going to cut, because there’s A LOT and it’s going to get long folks.  And a smidgen spoilery.

On the surface, the plot itself is simple.  A supernatural who-dunit and where-is-it, a large and eclectic cast of characters, with two main leads who fit the one goes by-the-book and other is a renegade trope to perfection.

Then the series actually starts with the MC’s horrorific violence filled death, a bunch of vicious gossip, and someone waking up in a body that sure the heck ain’t theirs.  Simple?  Not so much and that’s just the first chapter.

And, oh, god, the characters in this series are just everything little ol’ me could want.  Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have catapulted themselves to I STAN levels in my hierarchy of Favorite Fictional Characters and even secondary characters make me cry/scream/laugh/*insert every other emotion* on a level I haven’t experienced in a very long time.  I would die for Wen Ning, any version.

In this cast we get several sets of foils and a whole host of morally grey characters.  No one, with the possible exception of the Juniors in the present timeline, are not guilty of at least something.  Our protaganist, Sunshine Idiot Genius Hero Wei Wuxian has caused the death of 3000-5000 fellow cultivators, dug up countless graves, and risen the dead at a level that’s, well, not been seen by me in any sort of fictional setting that has necromancers.  Look, I like stories with necromancers.  He is also someone who doesn’t hesitate to do what is right, loves his family and his friends, and a lot of the above actions were in direct relation to him wanting to protect those that are precious to him.

With such a set of complicated characters I get a whole murderboard worthy set of complicated relationships and often complicated motiviations that make me want to cry tears of emotion.  Wait, no, backtrack that as there is no want, I have cried tears of various emotions as something else is discovered or thought about or I see someone giving me some good, good meta to chew on.  Yunmeng Twin Heroes being one potent source of me wailing, “MAH BABIES” while clutching at my face is a good example.  Jiang Cheng is such a misunderstood character.

Know what relationship is both complicated and not at the same time?  WangXian.  As in the relationship between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.  As in the romantic relationship between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.  As in these two Idiots wandered off and got married at the end of the novel and fucked by the side of the road for their first time and we learn that our strong and stoic Hanguang-Jun is one kinky motherfucker and Wei Wuxian is really that guy and doesn’t shut up during sexy times.  Considering that he doesn’t shut up during the rest of the time, it shouldn’t be that surprising, but, really, the man is missing a filter.  Look at the exasperated Xiao Zhan videos of The Untamed BTS where he’s complaining about the number of pages he has per scene.

But, it took time for them to get there.  It took years of hardship and anger and miscommunication and death, including Wei Wuxian’s in the beginning, to get them to the point that they are.  I won’t wax poetic about Lan Wangji, other’s who word better than I have already said so many good things about how he is fundamentally a Good Person and I won’t hear a bad word said about him and the fact that there a number of people who thought he was the villain in The Untamed for a good part of it make me cry for humanity.  Okay, I’ll wax a little poetically about him.  But, the man has his faults.  He’s not very verbal and that can and does cause problems, like leading to Wei Wuxian to believing that he hates him through most of their past, especially as they start hurtling towards the end of his first life.

I know I’m missing a lot, like how there is no true villain of the story other than people being at their worst and allowing that to lead so many of their actions.  But, really, I’m just going to go back to screaming about WangXian and sharing memes.  Oh, and a few recs because the writers in this fandom?  Fucking Aces all around.

<u>Fic Recs</u>

Five Times Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng Had a Civil Conversation, and One Time They Didn't by tabulaxrasa      Summary:  *Does what it says on the tin*Wei Wuxian's life is almost perfect now. There's just that one, angry, purple hole in it. If only there was some way to fix it.(There is. It's using their words.)     Reason I love it:  The relationship between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian is almost as important to me as the the one between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji and this gives me hope that there is a future for the two of them at the end of the novel.  That things can get better, never back to the way that it was because too much has happened, but they can reach a Good Place and that’s everything really.

Monotone by Seredemia

    Summary: Wei Wuxian died. Wei Wuxian died and he never came back, not after thirteen years, or a hundred, or a thousand. The year is 2019 and Lan Wangji is still here, having reached the highest point of cultivation that has gifted him with immortality. It's supposed to be a gift, an honour, yet to him it's nothing but a curse.

Wei Wuxian is dead, and life is colourless. Lan Wangji ghosts through time, simply living each day in monotone.

That is, until he meets a man who has the same face, same name, same smile as Wei Wuxian. Suddenly, there's colour and hope back in his life—but it's not long until he realises Wei Wuxian in this timeline has not escaped the sorrow that plagued his past self.

Maybe history really does repeat itself after all.

     Reason I love it:  It’s epic.  Not only in length, but in how everything is put together.  The past parallels the future in all the right ways with certain things coming together to make me cry happy tears as I clutch my cat in my arms.  And, let’s not forget Lan Wangji and his haircut.

Perfectly Arranged by Mondengel

     Summary:  Three nights before his wedding to an omega from Yunmeng, Lan Wangji meets Wei Yuandao.

     Reason I love it:  I have a fondness for ABO.  I’ve long stopped being ashamed of my enjoyment of it and I love even more when I find an ABO that gives me arranged marriages that stay so true to the characters.  Even just this little slice of life, gives us something close to the actual meeting of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian and it makes me so happy that their happiness is well and truly implied at the end of this.

Now, there about a thousand other things to be read that one should when it comes to this fandom, I’ve only thrown a few grains of rice to show what has been feeding my appetite, but, no seriously.  The fic is so good guys.  I think I’m actually going to start throwing up recs on the regular because gaaaaahhhhh and I’m going to go read some now that I’m done word vomiting.