waterscroll

Guardian

glymr is writing the post-canon Ye Zun slow-burn fixit of my dreams, in which he very slowly learns to live in the world and eat things other than people. It's going in a Ye Zun/Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan direction but it's going to be a long journey. Third Time Pays for All. WIP.

china_shop wrote a phenomenal early-season casefic with a heartwrenching pair of sisters from different worlds. This isn't a premise I've seen before and I love it. Won't Be Falling.

starandrea wrote a lovely subversion of the arranged marriage trope for Ye Zun and Zhao Yunlan, Fire, Rain, Reasons to Choose, and also a very nice Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan fixit in Dixing, Infinite Staircase.

extrapenguin wrote an extremely fun Ye Zun/Zhao Yunlan AU, in which Zhao Yunlan finds Ye Zun before Shen Wei, and they live happily ever after with lots of food. In Two Nights and a Day.

The Untamed

The Immortal Wen Qing by Nillegible. A Wen Qing Lives AU with a fantastic premise and an excellent use of the self-fulfilling prophecy trope. No pairings.

on the verge of surpassing by jelendra. Lan Xichen/Jin Guangyao. One reason I love this pairing is that it makes Lan Xichen potentially a lot more morally ambiguous than he looks, and this fic uses his dreams to push him to the breaking point to see what he might be willing to do for love.

Nothing in Return by Rurtle. Post-canon, Wei Wuxian's relationship with Lan Wangji falls apart and Wei Wuxian is stuck in regrets and pining over Jiang Cheng. The author promises a WWX/JC happy ending but for now they're barely talking and the WWX angst is beautifully angsty. WIP.

The disappearance of Jiang Wanyin by koburi. Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji or Jiang Cheng/Lan Wangji, depending on how you look at it. After Wei Wuxian's death, his golden core starts to take over Jiang Cheng. Lan Wangji is into it. I had a much more optimistic interpretation of the fic than the author did, but I thought it was a beautifully creative take on the consequences of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng trying so hard to die for each other.

the beast that slumbers within your soul by Cross_d_a. Baoshan Sanren & Jiang Cheng in an AU in which she really does find him on that mountain. Has some great and beautifully epic Baoshan Sanren/Lan Yi backstory. WIP.

And a thing I wrote:

Second Disciple, the story of the rebuilding of Yunmeng Jiang, and of its Sect Leader and First Disciple, as told by a disciple who used to be a merchant of purple cloth. Vaguely JC/WWX shippy, may be more so in the second chapter. WIP.

( some notes on that story )

I finished watching The Untamed in an all-night watching binge on Sunday night/Monday morning and immediately wrote my Jiang Cheng feelingsplurge in fic form, What Things Cost in a Broken World (mostly Jiang Cheng introspection, rated T, no warnings). Because damn, his last scene gave me lots of feelings. I may write some of them in tl;dr meta form here as well, but not today because I'm exhausted.

I'm going very slowly through the novel and kind of having a hard time because it's so close to the drama and but the characters are different enough that it feels very uncanny valley odd. I think I'm going to have different favorite characters and ships in the MDZS novel than I do in the Untamed drama - in the drama I love Jiang Cheng beyond all reason but I don't think I like his novelverse character as much. I also have very strong feelings about dramaverse Lan Xichen, who is a different person in the novel. I'm going to continue with the novel, because it is very good, but it might be better if I try to keep the canons separate in my head.

In other fannishness, I've started watching the Scum Villain Self Saving System cartoon. It is hilarious and cracking me the hell up. Very recommended. I think I'll have to read that novel too, eventually.

( reactions to episode 31, spoilers past that )

Anyway now I'm only reading fluffy fixit fics, including anything in the Jiang Cheng/Lan Jingyi tag (my go-to for fluff in the fandom) and any fixit in the Meng Yao/Lan Xichen tag (my go-to for cathartic fixes of a very bad situation).

Some recs:
this crossover vid with Lord of the Rings in which post-canon Lan Xichen visits Rivendell, befriends Elrond, and talks to him about grief and loss. Elrond was the very first character that I ever got fannish about so it's nice to see him again, and yes I think he and LXC would get along. The title is in Russian.
Make it Holy Another Meng Yao/Lan Xichen vid. Not a fixit but great for watching over and over while bawling my face out.
across the wheel, Jiang Cheng/Meng Yao falling in love as they co-parent Jin Ling. Would probably be a disaster but I like this optimistic and sweet take on it.
Complicit: Towards an alternate reading of CQL's Lan Xichen. Fake academic study that treats the various canons as based on competing historical analyses. Hilarious.

I can't imagine I'm going to write anything in this fandom, there's so much out there that I can find what I'm looking for without having to write it myself. But I think that's good for me for now, I'm feeling a little exhausted by life and don't have much active fannish engagement in me at the moment. So it's nice to just sit here and read other people's fics for a bit.

I don't have a lot of deep thoughts about it yet, so just some personal reactions.

( It's quite addictive )

If you've watched it, who are your favorites? Any spoilers you want to give me? I'm not avoiding spoilers at all.