#slightlytookish

[ao3feed-jeevesandwooster]

Jeeves and the Accidental Marriage

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/uwN56OE " by slightlytookish It's all a bit rummy. Words: 133, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Reginald Jeeves, Bertram "Bertie" Wooster Relationships: Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster Additional Tags: Accidental Marriage " read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/52724422

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #slightlytookish #Jeeves and Wooster

[the-once-and-future-love]

29. Good Merlin Fics I've Read Recently (10/24/23)

5 times Arthur warms Merlin up by itsnautica

The Account of Sir Percival by Zaadi [gen]

a million little times by schweet_heart

A Quiet Decision by Zafra

All that Arthur loves by Adara_Rose

Alliance by NotInPublic

Amnesia by Theroundbartable [gen?]

The Beast of Winter by linaerys

Born to Rule the Storm by slightlytookish [gen]

Convivial by BeautifulFiction

Delirium by mithrel

Dirty Laundry by MerlinLikeTheBird

don't you love the way (I drag you down) by queerofthedagger

Epistemology by Solarcat

everything that I am by theotherpacman

Faded Scars by death_of_a_phangirl

Gossip travels like wildfire by Misaratis

the heart of a star by prattery

The Hunt for Red Emrys by darkbluedark

I walked into your dagger for the last time by PetrichorAndInk

i was fixed on your hand of gold by intothefirewego

In The Bleak Midwinter by raven (singlecrow)

The Last Word by Greensilver (Trelkez)

Learning to Communicate by Tamloid

Lines On A Map by MerlinLikeTheBird

Love Potion No. 9, or: A Midsummer Night's Dream in Camelot! by rubberbutton

Magic and Bravery by Titti

Merlin Emrys and the Last Dragon Egg by schweet_heart

Mount Badon by Betty

New Light by kageygirl

The Proper Course by mithrel

Rumor Has It by vintagelilacs

Safeguard by Solarcat

Seeing White by TheAsexualofSpades [gen?]

Serket’s Poison by death_of_a_phangirl

slán sábháilte by dotfic

The sword or the scabbard? by oconel

Take Me Up (cast me away) by sacredraisincakes

The Things We Do For Love - or the things Merlin swears he won't do for Arthur but ends up doing anyway. by ximeria

Things Left Unsaid by Cithara

Time Now To Be The Future by ToraK (torakowalski)

Trade by LadyoftheWoods

Treason, Love, Magic by harlequin (julie)

Warm by Penknife

(We Can Burn) Brighter Than the Sun by Batsutousai

Ygraine's Son by death_of_a_phangirl

#long post #merthur #merlin #bbc merlin #bbcm #merlin fic recs #fic rec list #fic recs #merlin bbc #bbc merthur #merlin/arthur #fic rec

[young-artist-ai]

I finally finished my comic. 5 tons of love, warmth and time are invested in it. So enjoy, and I'm going to cry with happiness.

(♡˙︶˙♡)

Comic based on @slightlytookish ‘s work

You can read it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51646/chapters/217313

#merlin #art #bbc merlin #digital painting #painting #artists on tumblr #scetch #merlin emrys #artwork #arthur pendragon #comiccollector #comics #my comic #comic #original work #colin morgan #bradley james #winter morning #youngartistai

[wangxianficfinder]

In the mood for a Fic...

~*~

1. Hello hello!! For the next in the mood for post, do you know fics where a-yuan remembers wwx during the 13 years?? Like maybe asking for his xian-gege??? Thank you!!

forgetting envies, remembering your loving hold by cosmicfuss (G, 4k, LSZ & WN, travel, remembering)

Lan Sizhui Sees Dead People series by darkbrokenreaper (T, 30k, wangxian, fluff, angst)

~*~

2. for the in-the-mood fics... anything with hurt or sick lwj? i've gone through everything there is with wwx, and i'm in the mood for cuddles, so anything where lwj gets taken care of? thank you so much for all your hard work, this blog is a lifesaver!

my bones into your bones by butterflylungs (M, 17k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Case fic,. Established Relationship, W hump, Hurt/comfort, Angst with a happy ending)

The Concubine Mo Chronicles Series by Enigmatree (T, 71k, WangXian, Prince LWJ, Concubine WWX, Royalty AU, Hurt/comfort) Hurt LWJ is in the last chapters

Shadows in the sun rise by Yuu_chi (E, 24k, WangXian, Post-Canon, Night hunts, Curses, Intimacy, Light Angst with a Happy Ending, They're married and they're in love) Lan Wangji is cursed

Master and Jade/002 by WaffleBunny13 (E, 6k, WIP, WangXian, Rabbit Hybrid LWJ, Human Experimentation, Unethical Experimentation, Doctor WWX, Bottom LWJ/Top WWX, Older WWX, Younger LWJ) Mad Science victim rabbit hybrid LWJ is rescued by Doctor! WWX

5 Times Wei WuXian was a Domestic Goddess by DoAliensLikePasta (G, 6k, WIP, WangXian, Sickfic, Fluff, Suprised LWJ, Established Relationship, Domestic fluff) WWX cares for a sick LWJ

The Cultivator's Cold by Court_on_Fire (G, 6k, WangXian, Post Canon, A splash of Angst if you squint real hard, Mild illness, Tooth-rotting fluff, Happy Ending) the mighty Hanguang-jun somehow catches a plain old cold—to WWX’s dramatic dismay; the author’s summary is a thing of beauty.

💖A Cyborg's Three Laws by FairyGardenCorgis, illustrated by @joshua-beeking (M, 194k, WangXian, Science Fiction, Slow Burn, Medical Procedures, Angst, Fluff, Humor, Eventual Smut, Hurt/Comfort, LWJ has RA, Idiot Friends to Idiot Lovers, obscene amounts of cuddling, like if you're looking for cuddleporn you hit the jackpot, Versatile wangxian) cybernetics scientist WWX converts RA patient LWJ into a cyborg and personally conducts his therapy. No-holds-barred cuddlepalooza, informed by both the author’s and artist’s experience of RA; this fan favorite has inspired too much fanart to list here. The original comics are on Joshua’s Tumblr under #cyborg!lwj au

and until the sun burns out, I will look after you by untakenbeepun (T, 2k, wangxian, post-canon, sick fic, hurt/comfort, established relationship, light angst, fluff)

The Best Medicine by BaconnEggs (G, 2k, wangxian, modern, sick fic, domestic fluff, comfort food, cuddles, forehead kisses)

A Curse of a Different Color by nickel710 (G, 35k, wangxian, JC/LXC/WQ, modern w/ magic, curse breaking, fluff & angst, asexual polyamory, hurt/comfort, repressed LWJ, drunk LWJ, bunnies, anxiety)

💖Careful hands by deliciousblizzardshark (M, 10k, wangxian, canon divergence, BAMF WWX, protective WWX, hurt LWJ, angst, hurt/comfort, getting together, first time, not a fix-it)

a fever, a promise, an unopened door by pale_and_tragic (T, 9k, LXC & LWJ, wangxian, post-canon, sick fic, angst w/ happy ending, hurt/comfort, fever, hallucinations)

A Storm of Laughter in the Stillness of the Jingshi by OnlyMeAndMyBones (T, 73k, WangXian, Angst with a happy ending, Hurt/comfort, Slow burn) Satisfying read where hurt LWJ got taken care of by WWX post Gusu punishment

side effects may include by slightlytookish (T, 14k, WangXian, Post-Canon, CQL Verse, Hurt/comfort, Case fic, Getting together) Another HGJ and common cold 😃✌🏻

~*~

3. Hi! I'm in the mood for a fic where one half of wangxian is from the modern world and the other is from ancient china. Without reincarnation if that's ok. Thanks

Wrong Turn, Right Place by diamondbruise (E, 71k, WangXian, Time Travel, kind of, it's more reality travel but there's modern wwx and cultivator lwj, Mutual Pining, Angst with a Happy Ending, Jealousy, Idiots in Love, Slow Burn, Misunderstandings, Cultural Differences)

you mean to make a puppet of me, by TheRealFailWhale (T, 31k, WangXian, Modern AU, Wingfic, Parallel universes, Curses, Getting to Know Each Other, Puppets, Slow Burn Perforce, Because Lan Wangji is Too Tiny to Burn, Crack Treated Seriously, Mojo's Post) LWJ, cursed into the form of a tiny fairy marionette, is transported to a modern AU where he comes into the hands of a handsome and kindly puppeteer; frontispiece by Mojo! (this was their 2022 Reverse Big Bang collaboration.)

~*~

4. Hello again!!! First off I want to say thank you for all your work providing so many hours of reading I really appreciate it! Second would y'all know of A) any mythical wanxian? Or B) a/b/o (again wanxian) centered more around fluffy goodness rather than the uhhh.... more explicit aspect to the trope? Thank y'all in advance!! @yukihyo-no-yosei​

4A)

💖Soaring through the skies - together series by Vrishchika (E, 15k, wangxian, fantasy au, dragon LWJ, phoenix WWX, getting together, non-human genitelia, explicit sexual content, getting together, first time, double penetration, oral sex, angst w/ happy ending)

💖Tricks and treats by apathyinreverie (M, 12k, wangxian, dragon LWJ, phoenix LSZ, fox WWX, family, injury, fluff, romance, possessive LWJ, WIP)

💖Hoards and treasures by apathyinreverie (T, 21k, wangxian, canon au, fox WWX, dragon LWJ, not Jiang friendly, smitten LWJ, fluff, romance, courting)

💖a one track mind by bunnxianluvsu (MooseFeels) (E, 11k, wangxian, modern, phoenix WWX, romantic comedy, body image, illnesses, medical, accidental flirting, WIP)

💖fell by you by Vrishchika (E, 44k, wangxian, fantasy au, dragon LWJ, immortals, deities, dragon WWX, angst w/ happy ending)

💖dark and glimmering by Sanguis (T, 5k, wangxian, modern, post-canon, married couple, immortality, technology failure)

Paths of Light and Darkness Converge by ataratah (E, 30k, wangxian, fox WWX, dragon LWJ, secret identity, non-human genitelia, crack treated seriously, fluff, angst w/ happy ending)

雙喜臨門: double happiness at your door by besanii (T, 57k, wangxian, xianxia au, fake/pretend relationship, fluff & humor, fox WWX, dragon LWJ, immortals, romance, developing relationship, Three Lives Three Worlds au, love confessions, weddings)

💖Phantom Leashes by mondengel (M, 3k, wangxian, vampires, horror)

💖Under a Blanket of Black Wings by ChaoticAndrogynous (T, 19k, wangxian, vampire WWX, bedtime stories, implied/referenced character death, gothic fluff, angst w/ happy ending)

💖bloodstained by LilyMaxwell (E, 10k, wangxian, supernatural elements, vampire WWX, human/vampire relationship, smut, bottom LWJ, blood drinkink)

💖The Way You Tremble by themunchking (E, 6k, wangxian, dark wangxian, vampires, blood, mild violence)

💖Like the sea loves the shore by Say (E, 15k, wangxian, implied/referenced WWX/WC, rule 63, fantasy au, sirens, dark LWJ, romance, friends to lovers, fluff, angst w/ happy ending, smut, mild gore, non-human genitelia, infidelity, age difference)

💖Buried in the Sky, Hallowed by thy Depths by themunchking (T, 9k, wangxian, sirens, supernatural elements, dark wangxian)

💖Bottom of the Deep Blue by mondengel (T, 20k, wangxian, mermaid au)

💖oceans, drowned in starfire by stiltonbasket (T, 30k, wangxian, LXC/NMJ, modern, novelist LWJ, merman WWX, accidental baby acquisation, family secrets, domestic fluff, happy ending)

ten hearts for you by athylia (Not rated, 12k, wangxian, mermaid LWJ, harvest moon au)

seeking the magic below by Leahelisabeth (fortheloveofcamelot) (G, 10k, wangxian, modern, highschool au, mermaids, H2O au, transformation, bullying, first meetings, first kiss, necromancy)

sun beneath the sea by cringewerewolf (M, 19k, wangxian, modern, mermaids, merman WWX, human LWJ)

4B)

a-niang by imusuallyobsessed (T, 3k, LSZ & WWX, wangxian, ABO, mating cycles/in heat, grooming, comfort, family fluff)

Baby, Don't Grow Up by FireboltSparks (G, 3k, wangxian, LWJ & LSZ & WWX, ABO, family fluff, established relationship)

I Will Build My Love a Bower by little_ogre (G, 1k, wangxian, ABO, nesting, puberty, cloud recesses shenanigans)

Red Riding by silverclaw (T, 5k, wangxian, ABO, werewolves, human LWJ, alpha WWX, jealous WWX, protective WWX, past injury)

Tenderness by simply_mad (G, 4k, wangxian, ABO, mpreg, fluff, caretaking)

flourish, full-flowered by lazulisong (T, 13k, wangxian, canon divergence, ABO)

~*~

5. So I just finished reading "Advisable Lan rules and other shenanigans" by apathyinreverie on ao3 and it is GREAT. So I was wondering if A) anyone new of other fics in that vein/similar vibes? B) fics where phoenix mountain hunt's feast goes differently C) fics where wwx has to corral drunk Lans E) any fics set post sunshot pre-burial mounds. Esp any of the above that are funny/fluffy/fix-it.

5C)

through all the in-betweens by isabilightwood (E, 13k, wangxian, canon divergence, drunk LWJ, pining, bottom LWJ, sub LWJ, kink discovery, angst, fluff, smut)

All aboard this drunk boat... by Ladycroft4evr (G, 2k, wangxian, drunk LWJ, drunk Juniors, Responsible Adult (tm) WWX)

~*~

6. Hellooooo to our lovely mods 💞💞 For your next, I'm in a mood for recs, A) could you rec fix its?? Any and all type are extremely appreciated. I also have another request, B) do you maybe have recs for the junior quartet being ducklings to mama duck WWX?? Thank you for all your hard work ❤️ @flexible-racoon

6A)

🧡decay by antebunny (G, 15k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Angst, Misunderstandings, Miscommunication, Fix-It, Angst with a Happy Ending, the fluffiest ending, Hurt/Comfort)

🧡Stunted, Starving Juvenility by TomatenMark (E, 329k, WangXian, WIP, Fix-it of sorts, Talisman master WWX, Not JFM Friendly, Study Arc, Getting together, Fluff and Angst, Engagement)

🧡 Song by WithBroomBefore (T, 41k, Platonic Soulbond, Hurt/comfort, Canon Divergence, No golden core transfer, JC&JZX stay in Xuanwu cave, Fix-it, Temporary character death)

the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break by @rosethornewrites (E, 70k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Angst, Hurt/comfort) my wip

6B)

Here We Go Again by Alliandra (T, 174k, wangxian, JC & WWX, JC/WQ, post-canon, canon compliant, conspiracy, angst w/ happy ending, pining, possession, family feels, major character injury)

lucky me, i can hear ghosts by monsshi (G, 4k, wangxian, WWX & Junior Quartet, post-canon, night hunts, demonic cultivation, BAMF WWX, mystery, minor injuries, minor violence, ghosts)

Trust by FlyingMachine1 (G, 8k, WWX & Juniors Quartet, wangxian, BAMF WWX, humor)

the stone-filled sea by yukla (T, 9k, WangXian, WWX & LSZ, Post-Canon, senior wei defense squad, a study of the way prejudice and injustice and anger trickle down from generation to generation)

~*~

7. for "in the mood for", fics where wwx goes off to the sect leaders about their treatment of the wen remnants, either pre or post resurrection

Travel Back Down That Road by iSwallowMy_converse (T, 8k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Time travel Fix-It, Somebody Lives/Not everyone dies) time-traveller post-canon wifi goes off at the phoenix mt banquet

~*~

8. hello! do you know any fics where lwj runs away? it can be canon or not, lwj just can't with his family anymore and nopes out of it? normally wwx is the run away in the fics, but ive never saw lwj being the one. OR they can run away together idk. thank you for your attention! <3

With Shortness of Breath by QueenieWithABeenie (T, 72k, WIP, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Demonic Cultivator LWJ, Hurt/comfort, Hopeful ending, Angst and Feels, Fix-It of Sorts)

the wild hunt series by antebunny (G, 18k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/comfort, Angst) they run away together

💖And They Have Escaped The Weight of Darkness by cosmicmilktea (T, 10k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Memory Loss, Grief/Mourning, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, domestic life, Happy Ending)

~*~

9. Hi! For the next "I'm in the mood for a fic" post... I'm in the mood for fics where WWX is a shapeshifter (any kind!) that take place during the Cloud Recesses study arc! (They can be longer and extend past that point too, as long as shapeshifter wwx at cloud recesses is a thing!)

The Beast of Gusu series by Netrixie (T&M, 212k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Wolf WWX, Slow Burn, Fluff and Angst, Eventual Happy Ending)

flame and rust by cl410 (M, 34k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Happy ending, Dragon WWX, Fluff and Humor, Light angst)

The Tiger has Destroyed his Cage by updatebug (G, 54k, WangXian, Fix-It fic, Hurt/comfort, Tiger WWX, Found family, Angst with a happy ending)

The Light Within the Dark by Dreaming_Days (M, 123k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Shapeshifters AU, Fox WWX, Dragon LWJ, Happy ending)

When fish soar by mondengel (G, 2k, WangXian, Mermaid AU, Mermaid WWX, Dragon LWJ) hope mer shifter wifi with a side of dragonji is ok

Ember clouds by apathyinreverie (T, 9k, WIP, WangXian, Fluff, Fix-It, Dragon WWX, Romance, BAMF WWX) dragonshifter wifi

~*~

10. Hey do you know any good fics where either or both of them are famous?

🧡 Melodies series by sassybluee (T, 241k, wangxian, modern, music industry au, classical musician LWJ, rapper WWX, celebrities, getting together, domestic fluff, body image, depression, hurt/comfort, unspecified eating disorder) I reread the Melodies series on the REG, so good

💖there is a glorious sunrise (dappled with flickers of light) by moonbots (T, 18k, modern, rockstar LWJ, artist WWX, fluff, angst, humor) Also 10, here’s a fic that was written for my edit during the last RBB!

💖Pop and Prejudice by flowerofgusu (E, 25k, wangxian, modern, famous popstar WWX, music critic LWJ, misunderstandings, pining, falling in love, slow burn, fluff & angst, smut, hurt/comfort)

🧡I Don't Want to Debut! by countingcr0ws (G, 56k, WangXian, Modern AU, Reality show, Idols, Actor LWJ, Forced Contestant WWX)

【那夏天的我們】a stroke of fate by puddingcatbeans (G, 59k, WangXian, Modern AU, YouTuber WWX, Musician LWJ, Farmer WWX, Fluff, Slice of Life)

[restoration exercise - no talking] by spookykingdomstarlight (M, 18k, WangXian, Model WWX, ASMR YoutTuber LWJ, Strangers to Lovers, Meet-Cute, Long-Distance Relationship, Identity Porn, Fluff, Light Angst, Loneliness, Yearning)

Confessions of a (Dumbass) Pop Idol by lemonlush with art by Neeska (T, 8k, WangXian, Modern AU, Pop Idol AU, Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Crack, Eventual Romance, Diary/Journal, Mojo's Post)

~*~

11. Hello! Do you have any fic recs for role swap where WWX takes JYL's place when she gets stabbed? Or maybe a full on roll swap where JC or JYL is the YLP/M and WWW dies, maybe he comes back to life?

Shattered Dreams by pupeez4eva (Not Rated, 8k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Time travel, Angst, Fluff, Yunmeng Jiang siblings, Angst with a happy ending)

monsters cannot break her stride by Stratisphyre (G, 3k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, JYL Lives, POV Outsider) not sure if this is precisely what op is looking for, but it’s got a lot of the elements

~*~

12. hey hey! im so sorry if im doing this wrong but for iitm would u mind recommending fics where lxc dies n it shows lwj reacting? preferably somwehere in/after ssc, but reading one after canon—or even before—would be v much welcome! ty for what yall do, hope u have a great day!

~*~

13. A) I'd like some fics that focus on LWJ rebelling against LQR/the Lan clan. He's such a rule-follower, rebelling carries the potential for a ton of drama, both for himself internally and for others who thought they knew him. SHOW ME THE DRAMA. B) related but different: Are there any fics where LWJ _passive-aggressively_ defies his family? Where he doesn't have the nerve (yet) to disobey directly, but makes his displeasure abundantly clear in petty ways? I'd like those fics too. Thank you mods! @invisible-mirror

13B)

it's a long road but we're not alone by Stratisphyre (M, 61k, WangXian, Somebody Lives/Not everyone dies, Getting together, Golden Core Reveal) a fusion of both prompts, hgj is not outright defiant but he’s quietly intractable :)

~*~

14. this is like... a highly specific in the mood for. but i'm hoping for some grandpa!lqr fic recs. i have this image in my head where he looks at wangxian (or lwj's hopeless crush) and realizes 2+2= grandbabies. and i'm just hoping somebody has written it.

The stuffed bunny, the beautiful nephew, and other gifts from Lan Qiren by deliciousblizzardshark (G, 8k, WangXian, LQR & WWX, Modern AU, Single Parent WWX, Good Uncle LQR, Accidental Uncle Acquisition, Found Family, Fluff) (LQR finds out his neighbor WWX is taking care of a child and is immediately like -This boy must marry my nephew - it's great ~ Mod C)

Lan Qiren, Baby Whisperer by Liebing (T, 2k, WangXian, LQR & WWX, Modern AU, Professor LQR, Single parent WWX, Student WWX, College AU, WWX has to bring LSZ to class, LQR can’t say no to a free grandkid, Fluffy, Match making LQR, Lans love a free kid, Happy Ending, Time Jump, Toddler LSZ)

but his smile never dimmed by Stratisphyre (G, 9k, LQR & WWX, Modern with Magic, College Student WWX, Single parent WWX, Professor LQR) CSI: Gusu series by Stratisphyre (esp #2)

~*~

15. Hello! I have two different requests for the next 'I'm in the mood for' you'll have space in, hope this is all right :3? A) Time travel fix it stories, where both WWX and LWJ travel back, and don't try to hide how very much into each other they are - I really want a lot of other people's reactions to Wangxian being shameless! B) The best of dark!LWJ you can think of!

15A)

Til Death Do Us Part by Thyone14 (Not Rated, 55k, WIP, WangXian, Time Travel, Established Relationship, Soft WangXian, Fluff, Angst with a happy ending)

Sacrifices Made with Blood by NocturnalFriend (M, 80k, WIP, WangXian, Time Travel, Angst, Hurt/comfort, Trauma, Trust issues)

Alternate by Hanashi_o_suru (M, 37k, WIP, WangXian, Time Travel, Established Relationship, Canon Divergence)

Another chance by lightsfillthesky (G, 41k, WIP, WangXian, Time Travel, Established Relationship, Hurt/comfort)

the world is but a stage for the two of us by MandMandM (Not Rated, 7k, WIP, WangXian, Time Travel, Established Relationship, Shameless WangXian)

in case of fire, break glass by Jenrose (T, 65k, WangXian, Time Travel, Established Relationship, Hurt/comfort, Everyone loves/nobody dies)

It is a serious thing just to be alive by Itgoeson (E, 57k, WangXian, Time Travel, Trans WWX, Established Relationship, Angst with a happy ending)

No, Lan Wangji, You Cannot Marry Someone You Just Met! by soulmateenthusiast (T, 40k, WIP, WangXian, Time Travel, Established Relationship)

The promises we make by LadyKG (T, 2k, WangXian, Time Travel, Established Relationship, Fix-It of Sorts Canon Divergence)

holding up the sky series by LadyKG (Not rated, 13k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Time travel, Fix-It of Sorts) works too

how far beneath the wave by lunarnoncooperation (themoonwouldnotcooperate) (M, 30k, WIP, WangXian, Time Travel, Established Relationship, Old married couple WX, Hurt/comfort)

Wangxian's Time-Travelling Shenanigans Series by pupeez4eva (T&M, 18k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Time travel, Humor, PDA)

Trials of Time by Muggle_Diary (E, 31k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Butterfly effect, Time travel, Fluff, Established Relationship, Not Jiang Family Friendly)

15B)

🧡 Rule Number One: Never get attached. by KizuKatana (E, 130k, WangXian, Modern AU, A/B/O, Criminal underworld AU, Fluff and angst, Crime boss LWJ, Rouge criminal genius WWX, Explicit Sex)

demons run when a good man goes to war by Miranda_Aurelia (T, 20k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Angst, Happy ending, NHS & LWJ Friendship, Not JGY & LXC friendly, Presumed Major character death)

🧡modus operandi by synonemous (E, 21k, WangXian, Modern AU, Serial killer WangXian, Eventual happy ending, WangXian's Canon Kinks, Smut)

🧡in flagrante delicto by synonemous (E, 39k, WangXian, Modern AU, Serial killer WangXian, A/B/O, Mpreg, Smut, Wangxian's Canon Kinks, Modern Yi City arc, Angst with a happy ending)

~*~

If you didn’t get an answer to your ask here, don’t forget to make use of @mdzs-kinkmeme and MDZS KINK MEME on  Dreamwidth. Authors actually do use them for ideas. You may get what you order!***Your prompt doesn’t have to be kink! Fluff, crack, whatever - it’s all good!***

#wangxian #mdzs #wangxian fic recs #i'm in the mood for a fic #the untamed #wangxian fic search #wangxianficfinder

[merthurallure]

a BBC Merlin

BDSM fic rec list:

Here are some of my favorite Merlin fics that feature BDSM! (I have quite a few more favorites but I didn’t want this list to get too long)

Such Extraordinary Loyalty by slightlytookish

A really great canon era spanking fic with one of my favorite rare pairs, Uther/Merlin. It’s dubcon for obvious reasons but Merlin does consent before the actual sex happens.

The Thimbles Between Us by tourdefierce

Modern Arthur/Merlin. This one is really hot and sensual, and features a kink I had never seen in fic before (which is saying a lot because I read a shit ton of kinky fics)

you and i by lyryk

Canon era Merlin/Arthur. Identify porn with Arthur working at a whorehouse. This one has really hot bottom Arthur and some excellent dirty talk.

if you were mine (baby, we’d play dangerous games) by stolenstars

Modern Merlin/Arthur. This fic is so so funny and really hot. It has amazing dom Merlin, and perfect use of gun kink!

Valiant Effort by BekahRose

This one checks sooo many of my boxes. It’s canon era Arthur/Merlin/Mordred and it’s so hot. It has lovely sub Mordred, surprising DP, and a really sweet ending. I adore it.

Hurts so good by mysticalraine

And finally, some incredibly hot canon era Arthur/Merlin. This is probably the best painplay I’ve ever read, and it’s honestly just one of my favorite smut fics ever. I love this one so so much!

#bbc merlin #rec list #merlin bingo #smut

[alba17]

Current Media Meme

Rules: tag 9 people you want to get to know better. Tagged by @magog83

Last Song: Florence Welch’s cover of Jealous Guy. I’m not counting classical music I play in the background a lot.

Last Show: Legally Blonde at my daughter’s high school. :) She played Paulette and was amaaazzing! (Assuming this means live shows because there’s a TV question below.)

Currently Watching:  I always have a whole bunch of shows going at the same time. Succession, Ted Lasso, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Vienna Blood, The Last Kingdom, The Sandman, Vera (slowly plugging through all the seasons). 

Currently Reading: Solomon’s Crown by Natasha Siegel. Historical gay romance featuring Richard the Lionheart and Philip II of France. I’ll be ditching this in favor of Exiles by Jane Harper, which I had on hold at the library and it just became available. This is the third novel in the Aaron Falk series of mysteries, which take place in Australia. Previous ones were excellent.

Current Obsession: The Beatles, specifically John/Paul. I have a Beatles blog at @pie-of-flames where I'm a lot more active.

Tagging @tailoredshirt @jelazakazone @vix-spes @slightlytookish @favoritedarkness @justanothershrub @mille-baci @zimshan @stardust-sadie if you feel like doing it.

#meme

[bryonyashley]

Moodboard!

I was tagged by the lovely @novemberhush to make an 1980s moodboard, as inspired by the time setting for the show Stranger Things.

Tbh I haven’t watched this show but if it's set in the 80s I definitely should; those were the days (yeah, I am old 😅)! So here it is...

"Open Pinterest and search ’your name/url + 80s asthetic’, then make a moodboard using the first 9 pics."

I tag @slightlytookish, @patapera,@morningstar1399, @sarkka, @mrsbillycranston, @ktradixionales and anyone who wants to play. It's fun!! 👍

#not exactly the first 9 pics because they were mostly alike #moodboard #80s #bei tempi #m:fiore #about me

[mdzs-fic]

Additional Tags: 

Post-Canon, CQL Verse, Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, Case Fic, Canon-Typical Violence, Original Character Death(s), Ghosts, Curses, Feelings, Pining, Fluff, First Kiss, Getting Together, Love Confessions

Word count: 14k

Summary:

Worry still sat in Wei Wuxian's stomach like a stone, but what Lan Wangji was describing sounded less like the curse was acting up and more like he'd gone and caught a cold.

As if on cue, Lan Wangji sneezed loudly.

On their first night hunt together after Wei Wuxian returns from his travels, Lan Wangji gets hit with a curse that seals his spiritual power. With his defenses down, he soon catches a cold.

Wei Wuxian is ready to look after him. What he's not ready to deal with are Feelings.

#the untamed #mdzs #wangxian #post canon #cql canon #canon compliant #getting together #sickfic #case fic #completed #slightlytookish #25k

[wangxiangiftexchange]

Winter Solstice Gift for slightlytookish

Happy Winter Solstice, @slightlytookish​! May it brings you peace and happiness. I’m (more than) slightly nervous about this gift and I hope the product is to your liking! 

References to Chinese idioms and concepts, marked in [], help with but are not necessary for comprehension, and are explained in the Footnotes on AO3 for those who are interested.

Read on AO3

*****

出淤泥而不染，

濯清漣而不妖

— 《愛蓮說》 周敦頤 (1017-1073)

For the way it emerged untainted from the muck,

Rising cleanly above ripples of water with an unaffected grace

— “On the Love of Lotus” Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073)

One

Every year, Wei Ying says he’ll wander far and wide with Little Apple; every year, he says Gusu is getting stifling and he needs a breather, needs … no, not anything Lan Zhan can offer — for what he needs isn’t found in the Cloud Recesses, where the air is too fresh, too clean, too cultivated. Every year, Wei Ying explains what he misses is the smell of commoners, free from the promises and ambitions of a golden core. What he misses is the chimney smoke, filthy with soot and stinks of burnt meat and cheap spices. What he misses is the dust that clogs the nostrils, that flies from under the iron hooves of horsemen running their races in jianghu. [1,2]

But Wei Ying always ends up here, inYiling. Specifically, here on this mountain where there’s no chimney smoke. No dust. No kitchens or meat or spices or hooves. No horsemen. No jianghu.

He has never visited the Burial Mounds in winter before. Lan Zhan made a rare request for Wei Ying to help with the revamping of the Library Pavilion, and so he spent his August drunk in the scent of Gusu’s sweet osmanthus.

It was a little too heavy, too fragrant for Wei Ying’s taste. Possibly due to the lack of even a breeze as summer dies. Cloud Recesses can rest within the clouds for this reason. The clouds don’t dissipate.

Here, the wind is strong—it’s the one thing that never dies in this place—and its whistles sharpen into shrieks among the grey bare tree branches. Grey as the sky, bare as the bones that crunch under Wei Ying’s boots only to expose another layer of them. Within the cracks where weak rays of sunlight touch the dead trees, where bones reveal the wounds of their old flesh and blood, white flurries are twirling with the black curls of Resentment.

They look like they’re fighting. They look like they’re coupling.

Wei Ying caps his last jug of Emperor’s Smile and ties it to his waist. He promises Little Apple to be back soon and issues a warning about not doing anything stupid.

The donkey doesn’t even bray.

Well, Little Apple is already stupid. Wei Ying smiles, twirls his flute and scales the slope that leads to Fumo Cave. He doesn’t bother with talismans or setting up borders. He doesn’t mind the Resentment testing him, sending tendrils into the hollowness in him that only here, in Lan Zhan’s absence, does he once again recognise its presence. He doesn’t mind the darkness curling around his limbs, reminding him of how A-Yuan used to cling to his leg while he walked his single plank bridge in the darkest of hours. He doesn’t mind the suffocating pain as the more violent bands of Resentment threatens to strangle him, the pain almost pleasant in how real it feels, like flesh and blood, the pain from all those the Founder of Demonic Cultivation thought he could save but ultimately lost.

There’s an intimacy to the hollowness, the darkness, the pain, the chokehold. The Yiling Laozu is home.

Two

The snow and the Resentment are fighting, after all.

A dark haze swathes the plateau where the Wen clan lived, determined to not let a single snowflake fall upon it.

The lotus pond is frozen, the ring of talismans Wei Ying set around it torn and tattered.  The previous summer he visited, like all summers before, Wei Ying filled the pond with water from the Blood Pool — pink water that, supposedly like the water in Cloud Recesses’ Cold Pond, never stops flowing. Like all summers before, he planted tubers stolen from the lakes of Yunmeng, tubers that promised to bloom in the same hue as the lotuses in Lotus Pier.

The time for the first green shoots to appear enumerated the days Wei Ying got to spend in the Burial Mounds. Afterwards, he hoisted a ring of talismans and hurried back to Gusu, feeling more like himself, more guilty as Lan Zhan looked up from his guqin — its strings being plucked, as always, as Wei Ying stepped into Jingshi — and whispered a confirmation that had no cause to exist unless, deep down, Lan Zhan still harboured doubts that Wei Ying would return. From the alleged far and wide wanderings; from taking breaths of chimney smoke and a breather from Cloud Recesses, the Lan Clan, and Lan Zhan himself; from walking among commoners harbouring the spirit of jianghu instead of a golden core.

You’re back. Such excessive words wouldn’t have otherwise left Lan Zhan’s mouth otherwise.  

Culprits of the freeze are there for Wei Ying to see; trapped trusses of dark red buried with whatever remnants of a water plant that used to require flowing water to survive. The blood from the pink Blood Pool water has congealed into bands as though it were Resentment’s scarlet sibling, and the bands, the tendrils criss-cross to form a lattice, a prison. Only half a lotus stalk manages to break free, its length above the ice grey as the sky and bare as the branches and bones. Wei Ying breaks it off and stuffs it in his robe, a token for yet another failed Burial Mounds experiment.

The young green shoots never make it into flowers — lotus blooms that, sages say, are untaintable, can purify everything.

The air, in fact, smells even heavier of blood. Violence. No wonder the Resentment is so active today, playful and alive, taking their chance to enter the opened front of Wei Ying’s robe. It traces his ribs before taking off again, like a tease, a caress, a greeting; invasive and intimate as night, as death.

Wei Ying, too, has died before. Once officially, twice in reality.

The first time Wei Ying died, he was here. The first time he was reborn, he was also here.

Liberate. Suppress. Eliminate. The three strategies towards pacifying Resentment leave one mystery unsolved. While the first assumes humanity—with its gratitudes and dying wishes—still living within the Resentment, the other two assume this humanity lost. Gone.

Where has it gone to? Has it left at all?

On the southern side of the pond, Resentment rises and falls into the decrepit huts through broken roofs, dark like the chimney smoke Wei Ying does miss. Humanity remains heavy, too, in the hut once occupied by A-Yuan and his Gran. The chopping board remains by the fire pit, the cleaver on it pitch black as bands of Resentment take turns to lick the blade. Grandma must’ve been cutting what little meat the sect of Yiling could afford then—it was all saved for the child—when she sent herself off to slaughter.

The Resentment can’t let go of blade’s memory of blood. Blood, so reminiscent of wounds, revenges, relief, so unbearably close to living.

Wei Ying was there too—well, here, here on the Burial Mounds, clinging onto his memory of bloodshed. His urge to revenge, to inflict every possible wound onto Wen Chao and his cronies.

He finds the stump that once served as a table and sits, crossed-legged. He brings Chenqing to his lips.

Every one of his flute is Chenqing. It matters not if it wears a red tassel, or comes with a Stygian Tiger Seal. His every flute tells stories that all want to judge but few want to hear. [3]

Cleansing isn’t the song for now or for here. Wei Ying isn’t Wen Ning, whom the Resentment assaulted without consent. By surviving the Burial Mounds, by devising Demonic Cultivation, Wei Ying willingly opened himself up for the Hell Resentment carries.

He plays Wangxian instead.

He plays it as if humanity, its meanings and sentiments aren’t lost to the swirls of black around him, as if they still have gratitudes to be repaid, dying wishes to be granted. As if they’re still worthy of liberation. Of “thank you”s and “sorry”s.

The darkness heeds his call and gathers, ropes against his flesh, closes against his throat in a way that if Lan Zhan was here, if Lan Zhan saw him, he’d be sure to strike with the most lethal note from Chord Assassination.

Lan Zhan…who, over the years, has also developed a habit of closing his hand around Wei Ying’s throat. He does so when their bodies merge into one, when all that remains awake in Cloud Recesses is the vast darkness above their heads, pinned in place by the moon and stars above the rooftops.

I won’t go anywhere, Wei Ying choked out then, as his mind now tells Resentment while his fingers—his body—play Wangxian. He did that, did he? He told Lan Zhan? Lan Zhan, so intent and exposed, his hair loose and robe discarded, his full weight pressed upon Wei Ying as if a man missing a golden core could still sword-fly away right there and then? Lan Zhan, soaked with sweat that had never shedded even in the worst of battles, his usually tight lips gasping to drink in whatever breath Wei Ying could spare?

Or did Wei Ying choke then and said nothing, even though Lan Zhan never used any force on his hand?

The cleaver falls onto the floor with a clang. Music that isn’t coming from Chenqing has flipped it over.

Chenqing leaves Wei Ying’s lips. He shoots up from his seat, turns.

Wangxian only grows louder, its notes from a guqin gentle but insistent above the whistling of the winds. It, too, tells a story all want to judge but few want to hear.

The man in Wei Ying’s thoughts, in Wei Ying’s dreams is on the Burial Mounds.

Three

Wei Ying would’ve seen Lan Zhan’s footsteps if the snow has been allowed to fall.

Wangxian stops, finally, when their eyes meet. The meeting isn’t for long. Wei Ying soon lowers his focus to the dust under his feet, freed of snow and Resentment by Lan Zhan’s talismans and marked by not the imprints of iron hooves but of his own lonely trips here.

“You came.” These words from Wei Ying are excessive too. like You’re back. Of course Lan Zhan did. Lan Zhan, ethereal like the rest of snowy Yiling and the cultivation world, his guqin so feared by yao mo gui guai on his lap. Lan Zhan, who still plays Cleansing at dawn before Wei Ying wakes. [4]

Don’t play for me, Wei Ying said.

I play for myself, Lan Zhan replied.

The Lan Zhan before him offers no reaction, so Wei Ying braves a look at him again. Flurries are still clinging on the familiar silver crown, the black hair shining like no Resentment can. The snow has thawed into beads on the jade-like face, as if to prove its chill is but a lie.

Warm, too, are Lan Zhan’s eyes, which harbour no accusations. There’s only warmth—heat—and patience.

Lan Zhan doesn’t belong to the Burial Mounds. Patience is never one of Resentment’s virtues.

Wei Ying smiles. “I thought the Lan Clan Leader is pre-occupied with the latest edition of Virtue and Conduct.”

That was yet another excuse for Wei Ying’s leave. That tome gives me nightmares, he said. Only to come to the place of nightmares.

Lan Zhan stows his guqin with a wave of his sleeve. “Eliminating rules takes little time.”

Wei Ying should’ve remembered that; the rules have been eliminated because they were no longer reinforceable. They were no longer reinforceable because of him.

As the cultivation partner of the clan leader, he was supposed to be a wielder of the Discipline Whip. Instead, he deserved the whip more than anyone else.

“You followed me here.”

This time, Wei Ying is rewarded by a raise of Lan Zhan’s chin, a measured survey of their surroundings. He follows Lan Zhan’s line of sight. Fumo cave—and the palace it once was—is covered with the same dust that could’ve been rocks or shattered tiles from the Xue Chonghai’s final battle; the same severed ropes from the second siege of the Burial Mounds, the talisman nets used to pacify Wen Ning; the same failed inventions and empty wine jugs that explained them; the same splatters of rust-red ….

But something has changed. Something is different about the place and Wei Ying cannot pinpoint what it is.

Still, Lan Zhan’s meaning is clear. He arrived at the Burial Mounds before Wei Ying.

Which is hardly surprising. For those with a well-cultivated golden core, sword flying between Yiling and Gusu takes little more than a few stick incenses’ time. Meanwhile, Wei Ying took a winding road around the mountains, with Little Apple refusing to climb where fresh grass and apples were scarce. It has been weeks since they left Cloud Recesses.

Lan Zhan’s meaning is also this: he expected Wei Ying to be here too, at the Burial Mounds.

He expected Wei Ying to lie to him.

“I—” Wei Ying’s scrambles for excuses, as Lan Zhan rises from the rock that was once Wen Ning’s sick bed.

“As long as I find you,” Lan Zhan says.

These words dig a sharp knife into Wei Ying’s chest. After sixteen years of waiting, the hope and satisfaction of the legendary Hanguang Jun has withered down to this: as long as he can find Wei Ying. Guilt coils around his innards, threatens to cut his windpipe.

He attempts a grin. “But I’m not lost.” He sounds strangled. Choked. “Whereas you, Hanguang Jun, must’ve  been totally lost to find yourself here.” He nods at the cave’s entrance, to the Resentment and flurries coupling, fighting. “The Chief Cultivator must have better things to do than to wander into a ruin.”

“Why do you call it a ruin.” It isn’t a question.

Wei Ying walks around, gestures with Chenqing at the pillars, the split beams above him. “This is hardly what I’d call decor. Hardly palatial enough for cultivator conferences and post-night hunt feasts. Also,—” he remembers Lan Zhan’s first visit, of A-yuan clinging onto him like snow on the silver crown “—I don’t think the kitchen has been supplied with tea leaves yet.”

Wei Ying’s humour, his bid to divert their present conversation down the memory lane is lost on Lan Zhan. “This was A-Yuan’s former home. Your former home.”

“Ah, Lan Er Gongzi,” Wei Ying tries harder, feigns a disapproving head-shake before pointing the end of his flute at Lan Zhan. “Now you’re just saying that I, a sect leader of legendary prestige, can only afford a dump like this.” Which was the truth, and Wei Ying flashes another grin as the winds howl outside. The dust in the cave ripples as their robes flap; Wei Ying secures his belt, sticks Chenqing in it. “I’ve have you know though, the fengshui here is more than exquisite, if you consider—”

“This was your former home.” Lan Zhan repeats, ignoring every word Wei Ying has said. “Which makes this place my home.”

Wei Ying breaks into a chuckle, sincere but more bitter than intended. “Your home? Ai-yah, Lan Er Gongzi—”

Lan Zhan lifts his forearm, retrieves something from his sleeve.  “And this,” he continues, raising what he found. “Mine to give.”

Wei Ying receives the gift with a trembling hand.

Nothing like it has ever existed on the Burial Mounds. Its fore-bearers—does it count, if they sprouted from the same soil only a lifetime ago?—were sterile, their seeds withered and poisonous. It mattered not they looked tall and green and strong, or the flowers they had once formed the core of shared the same hue as the Yunmeng lotuses.

The lotus receptacle in Wei Ying’s hand is smaller and a shade paler, but each pod is plump and promises the sweetest seed. Wei Ying gives it a sniff; its scent brings forth memories not only of Lotus Pier but of Cloud Recesses—not the sweet osmanthus drifting up from the foothills but the magnolia tree by the Library Pavilion. Sandalwood.

How reminiscent it is of the ones Lan Zhan handpicked for him on the boat in Yunmeng.

No more exceptions. Wasn’t that what Lan Zhan said then? But he has only made more exceptions for Wei Ying ever since, one after another.

Like polishing smooth the rules carved in stone by his ancestors. Like letting pet rabbits roam the grounds of Cloud Recesses proper. Like permitting dissent in Lanshi, as long as it comes with arguments that withstand the test of Wei Ying. Like asking Wei Ying to be his cultivation partner. Like saying nothing when Wei Ying comes and goes whenever he wants, when Gusu Lan’s has always been about order and predictability.

Wei Ying inhales again, and the change in the cave finally hits him.

Fumo cave no longer smells of blood.

He might’ve identified it sooner if the stink of violence wasn’t as strong by the lotus pond, or the proof of a slaughter, as stubborn in A-Yuan’s hut. But these are excuses. Diminishing every summer, like starlight on the rooftops at dawn, has been Wei Ying’s hope that he can heal the only source of healing on the Burial Mounds—the Blood Pool that used to be the kin of Cloud Recesses’ Cold Pond, the Pool that should never freeze; the Pool that turned into a congealed hell during the second Burial Mound siege. Time has since disintegrated the fierce corpses, their Resentment released from cold bones grey and bare; but despite Wei Ying’s best efforts every summer, despite his channeling its water to plant lotuses, Wei Ying hasn’t recovered a single, clean drop of water to return to the Blood Pool.

The Pool water might have flowed again, but it remained pink and reeked of blood.

Yes, it’s been Wei Ying’s intention to kill two birds with one stone. He intended for the Blood Pool’s ever flowing water to sustain the lotuses through the cold, and in turn, for the lotuses—untaintable, as the sages say—to purify the water that nourishes them. But the Burial Mounds have other ideas, handed Wei Ying a double defeat: the water for the Blood Pool never stayed flowing long enough for the lotuses to grow; the lotuses never survived long enough to cleanse its water of blood, of memories of violence and slaughter.

The two birds Wei Ying intended to kill have joined the flight of the snow, the Resentment.

The lotus receptacle in his hand has surely come from elsewhere.

“Seems like you’ve developed a taste for theft, Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying plays with the stalk in his hand, the stalk that is as strong as it is pliant. Two failures back to back, he thought, and he didn’t even get to get drunk. He decided to laugh then—at himself, mostly, for attempting the impossible again; for never learning, for never losing the habits he should’ve lost a long time ago — and escalate his rubbish talk. “I bet you got your hands on some Emperor’s Smile, took this from some lake on your way.” He waves the receptacle. “I should be glad you don’t have a sleeveful of chickens—”

“Wei Ying.”

Wei Ying stops. Lan Zhan has that look on him, the look when Wei Ying is amused by something he shouldn’t.

Right. Mine to give. Those were Lan Zhan’s words and Lan Zhan doesn’t lie, doesn’t joke. He means exactly what he says — the lotus receptacle comes from the Burial Mounds, from his own hands. His own effort.

“I saw the pond.” Wei Ying deflates, waves at the cave’s entrance. “Nothing’s growing in it. I guess it’s luck, that time I got something going a while ago. Plus, Lan Zhan, you really shouldn’t be encouraging my infatuation with lotuses. It’s not like I have any more business to do with them.” Especially the nine-petalled ones; Wei Ying gestures with the receptacle again and smiles. “So, unless you’re coming clean about how you got this thing, I think we should leave. Little Apple must be furious right now with this weather; bet it’ll throw me off its back on our trip home.” Home, as in Gusu, where Wei Ying swallows the Resentment, hides it in the hollowness in him; where he dreams of Cleansing, and the man who shouldn’t be playing it, as dawn breaks. “Then, you’ll prepare for that conference coming up, while I’ll lock myself in the Library Pavilion and copy Virtue and Conduct a thousand times.”

As punishment. He isn’t about to list his sins in words; the list is too long. Coming here. Lying. The heart of them all being this: Yes, Lan Zhan, I failed to control myself. I couldn’t break the ties between me and the Resentment, as you said I couldn’t.

You’ve walked the single plank bridge for me, with me, while I stare at the bloody, resentful waters below and find it…homely. I want it to grow lotuses in a way I never do with the waters in Cloud Recesses.

It carries my reflection. Do you see that, Lan Zhan? Do you understand that?

“Ah, it should be two thousand times, now that Virtue and Conduct has been abridged.” Wei Ying blathers on at Lan Zhan’s silence, before schooling his expression to something more sincere, more serious. “You know, I can do with a bit of music for the copywriting. You’ll play for me, will you?”

Still, no reactions from Lan Zhan, whose face has only tilted ever so slightly in Wei Ying’s direction. A bead of molten snow traces the curve of his silver crown as it falls, like a shed tear. “Fine. Fine. I’ll play my own Cleansing. I can do that with Chenqing.” Wei Ying sighs. “Look, I won’t do it again. I won’t come here anymore. I won’t lie about my whereabouts. I won’t make you worry. I won’t—”

Lan Zhan turns before Wei Ying finishes, brings his hands to his back and strides towards the alcove, the corridor that leads to what is once Fumo Palace’s Meditation Hall. Wei Ying has no choice but to follow, the lotus receptacle held close to his chest.

Four

Wei Ying has to stop half way in the corridor. “When?” he asks.

Lan Zhan keeps his pace, his robes growing brighter to crescendo-ing rays of sunlight, which have never seen this part of the cave before. Wei Ying grabs his sleeve, catches up and faces him. “Lan Zhan!”

Lan Zhan stops finally. He waits, quiet still, as if the reason of Wei Ying’s question is lost on him.

“You’ve been here.” The light, clean scent of lotuses around them is now unmistakable — not from a receptacle or even a flower, but a pond full of them. “Before today. You sword-flew here, brought in tubers and you—” he points towards the Meditation Hall, where he knows, already, that lotuses are blooming in the Blood Pool. “Why? How many times have you been here since I —”

He chokes; to say more is to admit, in his own words, that he has been lying. He scratches his nose, forgetting the lotus receptacle in his hand.

It gives his cheek a clean slap.

It’s at moments like these that Wei Ying thanks the heavens that few hawkers have a clue what the Yiling Laozu is like.

Lan Zhan’s eyes soften, his lips curved just enough for a smile. “Deceit is no longer prohibited in Gusu Lan Sect.”  Wei Ying knows he’s been forgiven then, for everything he has yet to apologise for. “Virtue and Conduct has been—” Lan Zhan heaves a light sigh “— too deprived of chimney smoke.”

True, the chimney smoke from Cloud Recesses blends into the clouds that veil the mountains. Still, Lan Zhan is the better cook between the two of them; he’s the one who’s truly knows jianghu, being wherever chaos is, crosses paths with wherever the iron hooves are.

“I’m sorry,” Wei Ying says.

Lan Zhan does something strange then; instead of nodding an acknowledgement, his lips part, shudder before sealing tight again.

Lan Zhan is taciturn, but never hesitant. The moment soon passes, however, and he reaches out, does a gentle swipe on Wei Ying’s cheek.

It must be water he’s drying; the receptacle is that fresh, that alive.

But then, Lan Zhan’s fingertips come back…

Pink.

Pink, like the water from the Blood Pool.

There’s nothing sharp about the receptacle, however; nothing that can cut into Wei Ying. He lifts the receptor for a better look.

A seed has been displaced from its pod. Red tendrils have clawed their way out from a crack in its skin, before being diluted pink by the surrounding succulent, white flesh.

Wei Ying removes the seed and peels it thoroughly. Something like a drop of blood, old and congealed, soon sits on his palm; or a pearl coughed up by a demon oyster, a freshly dissected golden core. More red oozes out with a squeeze, staining his nails, the fine lines on his skin.

Still, all Wei Ying can smell is the scent of lotuses.

“It’s edible,” Lan Zhan says.

Edible? Wei Ying stares at Lan Zhan, who wouldn’t have made the statement if he hasn’t tried it before. He looks at the seed again. No respectable—or un-respectable—cultivator could possibly have chosen to try this.

“It’s sweet,” Lan Zhan adds.

Wei Ying rolls the seed inside his palm, until the blood—is it blood, if it smells not of violence and slaughter?—renders his hand indistinguishable from that of an executioner’s. Liberate. Suppress. Eliminate. Wei Ying’s straying from the cultivator’s path began with an imagined hand like this.

But he has always known about the sweetness of blood, hasn’t he? In the marketplaces of his earliest memories, fan-waving storytellers used to tell tales of jianghu heroes; those who made a living, they said, by licking the blood on their blades. [5]

Little Wei Ying finally gathered the courage to ask one day. Don’t heroes have something to eat?

The old man, wearing wrinkles deeper than tree rings, laughed. It’s an idiom, he explained, crouching to offer Wei Ying a steamed bun. He whispered then, as Wei Ying replies to Lan Zhan now—

“— But folks do say, blood from revenge is always the sweetest.”

“No.”

With that, Lan Zhan takes Wei Ying’s tainted hand in his own.

Wei Ying soon falls on his knees by the edge of the Blood Pool.

The ceiling of the Meditation Hall has been broken, the snow and Resentment kept out by talismans woven together by guqin strings. Under the light, grey and dreary outside but kind and forgiving here, lotus pads are floating on clear, calm water, green and round putuans for the flowers resting upon them. The hearts of the bloom are a regal gold; the cup-shaped petals are strong and pure white, carrying no traces of blood or darkness, no memories of violence or slaughter. [6]

They don’t even carry the purple of the Yunmeng lotuses.

If lotuses were native to Cloud Recesses, they would’ve looked like this.

If lotuses were grown under Lan Zhan’s care, they would’ve looked exactly like this.

But they, and the dilapidated hall that houses them, smell of the same summers Wei Ying knows, the same carefree laughter, the same…hint of soot and dust, the Lotus Pier being the only cultivator sect residence built within a commoner’s town. The soot that darkens the rooftops also promises delicious, filling dinners. The dust from iron hooves, from their bloodthirsty riders also delivers the xia from jianghu—its brotherhood, generosity and abandon that attempt and accomplish the most impossible.

Only when tendrils of red seep into the Pool does Wei Ying notice his sullied fingers and receptacle have dipped into the clean water. He snatches them back.

“You grew this.” He lifts his head towards Lan Zhan, who has remained standing, his hands behind his back.

Lan Zhan nods, his eyes trained on the flowers.

“Why? How?”

A long silence.

“I want to understand,” he answers finally. To understand what, he doesn’t have to say. It’s the draw of the Burial Mounds, the Resentment; the forces that compelled Wei Ying to visit the first time, even before the decor of Cloud Recesses had shed the last of its marital red.

“How long have you known?” Wei Ying asked. How long have you tolerated my betrayal?

“Three years.”

Three years, and Lan Zhan has never protested, never said a word. Wei Ying forces a smile.

“Ai-yah. I didn’t know my stealth skills were so bad. How did I give myself away?”

He expects an answer like when he asked for the name of Wangxian; a non-answer that will take Wei Ying months to figure out. A non-answer that’ll make Wei Ying further appreciate his own carelessness, forgetfulness.

His own cruelty.

But Lan Zhan replies softly, directly, immediately. “Your eyes turn red when we…” His lips part, shudder again. His head bows. His voice drops. “When I have my hand on your neck.”

When he and Wei Ying were coupling. When their bodies—when they—were supposed to become one.

The red got in the way. Resentment is black until it escapes through Wei Ying’s flesh. Below the steps of Jinlin Tower, Wei Ying’s tears were indistinguishable from the blood on Shijie’s robe.

Wei Ying’s Resentment was indistinguishable from the blood on Shijie’s robe.

Even now, only a flutter of those long eyelashes offers proof to the riptide of emotions that must have coursed, that must be coursing through Lan Zhan. “The red gets more intense every time you return to Cloud Recesses. It fades until you leave again.”

“Hand-on-throat is what you want between bedsheets.” Wei Ying’s voice falls, darkens at the light Hanguang Jun has cast on the truth. “You want me to —”

Shut up, Wei Wuxian. Shut Up.

What do you think Lan Zhan wants from you? What has Lan Zhan ever wanted from you?

“The Resentment in you gathers at your neck.” Lan Zhan does Wei Ying another favour with the interruption. “I thought I should pay its bones a visit; understand why it told my hand it has you, why it told me it can have me.” He levels his chin, his gaze finding a toppled pill furnace on the other side of the hall. His tone returns to its usual, almost distant calm. “I should do it before my fingers close around your throat; I wanted to do that. So I came and stayed some nights. Sealed my spiritual vein.”

It’s always the words Lan Zhan neglects to say that shake Wei Ying to his core.

The Resentment in Wei Ying has tried to drag Lan Zhan into its darkness. Lan Zhan has resisted, but instead of calling Wei Ying out, instead of trying to cleanse Wei Ying of Resentment, he came to the Burial Mounds to understand it, to experience it himself.

To seal the spiritual vein is to temporary shut off one’s golden core. To temporary downgrade into a commoner.

To turn into Wei Ying.

Wei Ying can see Lan Zhan stumbling among the bare branches alone, his Bichen sheathed and guqin stowed. He can see the billowing white robe being the only mirage of light on the Burial Mounds, the winds whistling, as famished bands of Resentment attacked, tore into him.

The bare bones crunched, exposed another layer.

There’s always another layer.

Wei Ying had lived through that before, unwillingly. The first night he spent on the Burial Mounds, he wished not for death but for the Hell in the scriptures where, at least, the executioners are someone else. Here, on the Burial Mounds, the one who elicited all the pain was always himself; the knives, the boiling cauldron, the mortars and pestles.

The regrets. The guilt. The envy and rage.

Resentment has only grown stronger on the Burial Mounds after the treachery of the Jins.

Who would want to live through that, willingly?

“When? When did you do all of this?”

Lan Zhan’s lips part and shudder yet again. This time, however, they move past his hesitance. “I haven’t been at wherever the chaos is—not as much as I’ve claimed.” He pauses briefly, his minute expression morphing from sadness to defiance. “I eliminated the prohibition of deceit from Virtue and Conduct for myself.”

The honourable Hanguang Jun, Lan Wangji, has lied.

Wei Ying hasn’t accompanied Lan Zhan on many of the trips to chaos. Yiling Laozu has remained an unwelcoming sight for most, so he only goes when his expertise is missed. On those nights when he’s in Cloud Recesses alone, Wei Ying watches the moon and the stars; on those nights, Wei Ying gets drunk on the rooftop and misses Lan Zhan.

On a night when a full moon had shattered into Gusu’s first snow, Wei Ying replayed the first sword fight between Lan Zhan and himself. He played Lan Er Gongzi.

That Wei Gongzi was dead. He was dead until A-Yuan climbed the roof to check on him, then offered to play the Wei Gongzi who had snuck in two jugs of Emperor’s Smile.

Perhaps, the rebirth of Wei Ying’s first death wasn’t on the Burial Mounds, but there and then.

If he only knew at the same moment, Lan Zhan was giving his life away for him.

There’s no survival on the Burial Mounds; only death and rebirth.

“Lan Zhan, Resentment doesn’t have me. I might have come back here for…“ Wei Ying doesn’t know what to say, he doesn’t have the answer, “but it doesn’t have me.”

“I know.” Lan Zhan offers an unexpected reply. “That was my mistake.”

Wei Ying stares at the water, the red tide from the crushed receptacle advancing towards the lotuses. He has ruined the Pool again. “No, you were right,” he says, a burst of darkness rising from the hollow in him. He slaps the water, taking cold joy in the tide’s breaking into threads, red as those on the deadliest blades. “You were right about me losing control.”

The darkness chokes the I‘m sorry he meant to say. So what? It leers. You think sorry never loses its sincerity, its meaning?

How many times have you, Wei Wuxian, said it to everyone who cared about you?

Lan Zhan doesn’t agree, doesn’t argue. “I also played Cleansing for myself,” he says. “I played to know if it liberates, suppresses, or eliminates.”

He leaves his insight unspoken. Instead, he sits down beside Wei Ying.

The way he does so is surprisingly efficient, surprisingly inelegant. He removes Bichen, his belt, his outer robe; he retrieves some cheap, grass-woven strings—doubtlessly bought from the commoners of Yiling—ties up and secures his sleeves, his hair. Wei Ying watches the silt taint the white of his inner garments, the remnants of red from the crushed receptacle soaking, creeping like cracks into the silk. He knows then, that’s how Lan Zhan works on the Blood Pool, the lotuses; that’s how the Bearer of Light levels himself with the young green shoots, until they thrive against the blood, the darkness, the hell of Burial Mounds.

The darkness in Wei Ying dissipates into a silent scream, which he lets out as he falls back into the mud himself, his face buried between his knees.

“Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan calls, his voice like Inquiry for Wei Ying’s soul. He waits for Wei Ying to look up, for the demons in the scream to vanish between the walls of the Meditation Hall. “You’re not here for the Resentment. You’re here for the lotuses, the Blood Pool that is a kin to the Cold Pond. You were searching for a Lotus Pier that isn’t Lotus Pier, a Cloud Recesses that isn’t the Cloud Recesses. You’re here for a place that knows those differences, that knows you.” He pauses; his chest heaves a light sigh. “The Burial Mounds and its Resentment don’t have you. The Cloud Recesses and I have lost you.”

“Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying closes his eyes.

“You came here because only the Burial Mounds knows, it’s the Resentment that makes those differences. Resentment that is the yin to spiritual energy’s yang, that has a kinship with blood, the lives in which blood flows.” He finds Wei Ying’s hand in the mud as Wei Ying turns away. “My prior misjudgement, and yours, was that we put up those talismans.” He guides them to look at the hole above them, the yellow papers fluttering on strings. Talismans that Wei Ying hung network after network of, when he self-exiled here with the Wens. Talismans that he set up around the lotus pond, before he returned to Gusu every summer. “The talismans keep Resentment away from the blood it wants to reunite with. Resentment is born out of blood and wants blood with it, wherever it goes.”

The bands of Resentment cannot let go of the cleaver in A-Yuan’s hut; the fabled jianghu heroes, riding for one revenge after another, make a living by licking their blades.

“If you and I spill blood in the Pool again,” Lan Zhan continues, “if we drive fierce corpses into it, heal Wen Gongzi in it and leave the talismans hoisted, the Pool will remain blood-filled. Resentment can’t reach the blood, can’t take it away. The blood in the water will congeal at snowfall; the Pool will freeze.” Like the frozen pond outside, Wei Ying can see now. The blood becoming un-moving, unyielding without its energy—Resentment is its life energy turned dark, turned yin. “The lotuses will die without flowing water. I put up this net to show you.”

Wei Ying sees even more: the bands of Resentment above the cave longing for the blood in the Pool below, wanting to reach across the net of talismans and failing. The snow, with its own entanglements with the dark bands. Fighting. Coupling.

“Show me what?” he asks weakly.

“I want to show you three things can co-exist: the lotuses, the Blood Pool—which should be renamed the Cold Pond, like any cold, healing body of water in a spiritual mountain—the Resentment. And on the Burial Mounds, they do co-exist. They do so to survive.” Lan Zhan turns to Wei Ying finally, and looks into his eyes. “They do so in you, Wei Ying, so you survived. My mind understood that, but my heart, not enough. Cleansing tried to liberate a part of you, but it couldn’t do so without breaking you.”

Wei Ying contemplates Lan Zhan’s words. The lotuses, reminiscent of Yunmeng. The Cold Pond, its twin in Gusu, in Cloud Recesses. Resentment, its home in the Burial Mounds. They all live within Wei Ying. They’ve all made Wei Ying the man he is. That much is clear.

But Resentment is also living within Lan Zhan now. Resentment leaves no lives untouched.

“Cleansing cannot liberate a part of me without breaking me,” Lan Zhan seems to read Wei Ying’s thoughts, says it like a promise, with a smile.

He says it the way he said it felt good to walk the single plank bridge into the dark, on the steps of the Carp Tower. He says it as though he will follow if, at this moment, Wei Ying decides to dive into the bloody, resentful waters below the single plank bridge to chase his reflection.

He already followed.

Wei Ying studies the face watching him. The jade-like skin. The clear, gentle eyes that mimic the stars. The mouth from which no muck, no filth has ever escaped. The expression, soft yet open, like Gusu’s famous Autumn moon.

Resentment may have found a place inside Lan Zhan, but Lan Zhan is, like the lotus flowers in the sages’ words, untaintable.

What had Wei Ying’s past-past-past reincarnates done, what saintly deeds had they achieved, for the three lives of Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriach, the Founder of Demonic Cultivation to deserve someone like Lan Zhan?

“So the lotuses have nothing to do with the restoration of the Blood Pool.” He knows he’ll never have an answer to that question.

Lan Zhan shakes his head. “They cannot cleanse.”

“The Blood Pool hasn’t helped the lotuses grow.”

“The flowers would’ve bloomed in any clean, flowing water. The beauty of lotuses—” Lan Zhan pauses, as a hint of sadness and—is it envy? Has Lan Zhan ever shown envy before?— flashes across his eyes “— is that it seems to prefer the presence of chimney smoke.”

Chimney smoke, from the kitchens of lake owners who chased after Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng. The smells of cheap spices and meat wafted from the thrown open doors of their huts, and Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng would decide, then, that they were hungry enough to go home.

They wolfed down their loot as they did, each lotus seed sweet and pearl-like.

“What is the red in the seeds then?” Wei Ying asks.

“Colour. The Resentment cannot, or is unwilling to remove it.” Lan Zhan takes the crushed receptacle from Wei Ying and swishes it gently in the water. The red spreads and intensifies in front of them. “The red collects in the lotus seeds over time. It’s nothing but memories.”

Memories of violence. Slaughter. Of how Resentment came to be. “You’re saying,” Wei Ying is being long-winded, he knows, but he only wants to make sure. “The lotuses aren’t tainted.”

Lan Zhan nods again. “The sages are correct. Resentment doesn’t leave a mark on them. The seeds are harmless. Sweet,” he remakes his statement, lets go of the receptacle into the Pool as he turns to look at Wei Ying. “I tried my first when my spiritual vein was sealed.”

A commoner, deficient of a golden core, cannot go without food. Wei Ying cannot go without food.

“Then, I ate more because the seeds reminded me of you.” A tremor has found Lan Zhan’s voice as his gaze lowers, as the tip of his ears goes pink.

Wei Ying runs Lan Zhan’s words in his head. He runs them twice. He runs them thrice.

With each pass, his smile widens, until it turns into a grin. This is the closest to love-speak he has ever heard from Lan Zhan.

He leans sideways, bumps Lan Zhan’s shoulder with his own. “You can go ahead and say I’m sweet. I won’t be offended.” He nods at the trail, the tide of red that connects them, through the water, to the centre of the Pool, the most flourished spot of the lotus bloom. “This red will fade too, am I right? I haven’t ruined your handiwork?”

Lan Zhan has neglected to mention how, or why he began the lotus project, and Wei Ying knows him enough to not ask. He must’ve seen the failure of the lotus pond outside; the rings of talismans marking each summer like tree rings.

And who else has always been there to pick up Wei Ying’s pieces, to catch Wei Ying where Wei Ying falls?

Lan Zhan nods, his blush now extended to his whole ears. They’ve been cultivation partners for more than half a decade, broken enough beds and bathtubs for the Cloud Recesses to hire its own carpenter. Even the folks in Caiyi are not so discreetly joking that Hanguang Jun, the Bearer of Light, reserves his light for the million-year long gazes he casts towards Wei Ying … and yet, Lan Zhan still can’t handle even the idea of himself flirting. Wei Ying suddenly finds all of this a bit funny.

Well. Quite funny. Of all the places they can make up their missing courtships, they’ve chosen the Burial Mounds.

Good fengshui here, indeed.  

He laughs, kicks his legs high and removes his boots. “All right. Now I’ll go certify that your claim about the seeds are true.” He throws Chenqing to the side, then himself into the water. He dives, grabs Lan Zhan’s boots and yanks them off too. “And you, Hanguang Jun, are coming with me.”

Five

Lan Zhan is the undisputed chief of understatement. The lotus seeds are the sweetest Wei Ying has ever had.

Only Lan Zhan can eat something so messy and still look clean and ethereal. The red, somehow, refuses to sully his teeth and skin, only adding colour to his lips and the water, no higher than the knees even at the centre of the Pool where they are, has washed away every bit of  mud on his clothes.

What isn’t so clean and ethereal are Wei Ying’s thoughts. Perhaps it’s the Resentment they’ve let into the hall upon severing the guqin strings, the Resentment now twirling and gliding just above the water surface, its swath of black accentuating the purity of the flowers, dashing in only to capture every drop of red it can find.

They remind Wei Ying of the cormorants in Yunmeng, hunting for fish.

Hunter. Prey. Violence. Slaughter. The Resentment here, strong as it is, has never haunted the dwellers of Yiling. The chaos that requires the presence of Hanguang Jun has never been about it; instead, it’s about those who’ve barged into its home. Who create it, make it a scapegoat, sharpen it into an executioner’s knife.

Wei Ying pops another seed into its mouth, savours yet another burst of sweetness as he further appreciates the scenery. A  black tendril interrupts its own hunting, coils around Wei Ying’s neck to join his stare.

Oh, he should stop pretending the Resentment has to do with his not clean, not ethereal thoughts.

It’s Lan Zhan in his wet clothes, having fallen into the water with Wei Ying’s too forceful pull into the Pool. It’s the thick, dripping hair, half loose from its tie under the lopsided silver crown. It’s the forehead ribbon, perfectly positioned still and waiting to be stripped.

It’s Lan Zhan, who manages to look strong as his teeth sinks delicately into another seed, regal as his mouth curves into a smile at its taste. On the days when both Cloud Recesses and Wei Ying get drunk with the scent of sweet osmanthus, Lan Zhan can be found on the back hill playing Wangxian. The music  sounds inebriated too as rabbits hop all over Lan Zhan’s lap and guqin, as if the Chief Cultivator is merely one of those rock decors so prized by the Gusu scholars.

Next summer, maybe, Wei Ying can bring with him a nest of rabbits, see how they fare on the Burial Mounds. The species seems to share similar musical taste as the Resentment—Wei Ying once practiced Cleansing on the back hills and their red-eye glares were quite unnerving, quite hostile.

Lan Zhan will come with him, Wei Ying is sure, to check on the lotuses.

Their eyes meet once more—all right, Wei Ying should also stop pretending their eyes have truly left each other since they’ve got to the centre of the lotus growth, since he’s left a trail of not red but his clothes in their wake—and this time, he bends and picks not a receptacle but a flower petal, rolls it into a needle.

The helpers at Lotus Pier smoked lotus petals when Madam Yu was travelling. Wei Ying, of course, gave the smoke petals a try. He starts a flame, pushes one end of the rolled petal into his mouth while peering at Lan Zhan.

Hanguang Jun has got a little too intimate with the lotuses. The image of him on his fours, as he demonstrated where he’d planted the tubers, caused Wei Ying to choke.

This, Wei Ying bets, slicing the petal tip with his teeth. Hanguang Jun has never tried this before.

He pulls a breath between his lips, feels its whistling down the petal tube, his tightened windpipe. The red seed stain on his lips marks the regal white and the thing caught at Wei Ying’s throat sings. The thing obsessed with red.

At that moment, it finds a peer, a rival in Lan Zhan.

The silver hairpin comes off first; the crown falls off next as Lan Zhan’s hair frees itself of its tie. A gust blows above the cave, raining in fresh snow as those star-like eyes gain a mystifying mist, throw Wei Ying a teasing, dark glance. The flame on Wei Ying’s petal dies, accompanied by a smirk from the usually reserved, well-mannered mouth as the perennially ramrod straight body falls bonelessly backwards, its knees naturally spread, its weight shifted back to rest on its elbows.

The Resentment on the water surface makes way for the fall, a circle of clear, bright water opening as sprays of black temporarily cling onto the white petals nearby, before gathering back into a thick band that relocates elsewhere to hunt.

That thing in Wei Ying is ready to hunt as well.

“Come,” the untaintable Lan Zhan whispers, his head tilting to rest against a lotus bloom, his eyes closing.  The protrusion on his long neck pulses to the whistling air in Wei Ying’s throat; the same pulse echoes along Wei Ying’s every vessel, drums as, through the crystal clarity of the former Blood Pool, Wei Ying’s eyes can see what is now engorged with blood between Lan Zhan’s legs and waiting.

He doesn’t need to be asked twice.

#slightlytookish #wangxiansolstice20 #*fic20 #*gifts20

[aethel-podfic]

new cover for a Band of Brothers podfic from 2019 that I created for the  archive.org streaming version

#podfic cover art #podfic #winnix #band of brothers #slightlytookish #aethel

[emrysandhisking]

by slightlytookish

tumblr: @slightlytookish

Uther Pendragon, in an effort to boost his political image, funds a new wing at a children's hospital. He sends Arthur through every month to make an appearance at the hospital, shake hands, kiss babies, and check to see that his obscenely large portrait in the hall is properly lit. On one such occasion, Arthur has a mishap and is mildly hurt. Merlin is the nurse that helps to patch him up. Suddenly those monthly visits have a lot more appeal.

Chapters: 1/1

(8k)

#merlin fic #merthur #modern au #nurse merlin #boys flirting #boys falling in love #merlin #arthur pendragon #the nurse's visitor #slightlytookish #understanding uther #fluff #first date

[ao3feed-jeevesandwooster]

Jeeves and the Accidental Marriage [Podfic]

read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/54752170 " by aethel podfic of the fic by slightlytookish It's all a bit rummy. Words: 32, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Fandoms: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Reginald Jeeves, Bertram "Bertie" Wooster Relationships: Reginald Jeeves/Bertram "Bertie" Wooster Additional Tags: Accidental Marriage, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Podfic Cover Art, Podfic " read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/54752170

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #aethel #Jeeves and Wooster

[aethel]

Title: In From the Rain Author: @slightlytookish Reader: aethel Cover artist: aethel Fandom: Book of Mormon Pairing: Connor McKinley/Kevin Price Rating: G Length: 0:07:01

AO3 link to the podfic

Base photo by David Joyce.

#podfic #aethel #slightlytookish #podfic cover art #book of mormon podfic #book of mormon

[phantaire]

for the fic prompt thing: Nabulungi/Arnold (can be gen if you like), university setting :D

The first friend that Arnold had made at university had been Kevin Price - not intentionally mind, but when Professor Monson had assigned the pairs for the icebreaker activity randomly it had been “Price, Kevin” with “Cunningham, Arnold” and that had been that, Arnold had a friend.

And to be honest, Arnold hadn’t really felt that he’d needed any other friends, Kevin was brilliant and the workload was hard and Arnold had never been much good at slowing down and paying attention, and he really didn’t want to disappoint his parents.

And then a cute girl texted him - Hi Arnold, I got your number from Kevin because you and I share the course with Dr. Gotswana and I was wondering if we could go over the reading together, N x - and she’d signed it with a kiss, if only she’d signed her name. (He should have paid more attention in that elective’s orientation class.)

#The Book of Mormon #untitled #prompt fill #Nabulungi #Elder Cunningham #slightlytookish

[villierscy]

lushthemagicdragon replied to your post: ~

what why did you punch a wall what why

It is not a cool story. It was actually my wardrobe door, not a wall, but semantics. Basically I slipped down my bed in the night, so when bleary eyed first thing in the morning I went to turn off my alarm my open wardrobe door was closer to my hand, and BAM.

slightlytookish replied to your post: ~

D: hope you feel better very soon!

Thank you friend!

floretesdecolors replied to your post: ~

holy shit holy shit I hope you feel better soon <33

In a way it’s kind of good/makes a change to have given myself a musculoskeletal injury, even if it does have neurological side affects, at least it should heal up? Just a matter of a) when and b) buying another brace for it. Thank you friend.

wolfhalls replied to your post: ~

oh my god! feel better soon poppet <3

Thank you lovely. Luckily, strangely, I’ve got almost full mobility of it. And mum has told me I have to do strengthening exercises which can take the form of giving Bob strokes as long as I use the right muscles, so, literally fussing the dog as medical treatment? Good plan.

#lushthemagicdragon #slightlytookish #wolfhalls #floretesdecolors #fingers have been broken before but that has generally been tripping + wall #or avoiding tripping on dog + smashing into railings #*thumbs up emoji*

[oatflatwhite]

Do you read Band of Brothers fanfic? If so, do you have any recs? ❤️

oh boy do i! i was deep in the trenches of the hbo war fandom circa 2015, and still dip my toe in now and again. i mostly read winnix and baberoe, so can't help you with specific speirton/webgott/other ship fics, sorry!

(also, to start with, i have 10 band of bros fics on my ao3 account, mostly written 2015/16 so take them with a grain of salt. they’re locked to ao3 users, so guests can’t read them, sorry!)

without further ado, some of my band of brothers faves, sorted by ship and word count (descending). it’s safe to say that recommending one of these author’s fics also recommends all of their band of brothers works too :)

winnix (dick winters/lewis nixon)

Lancaster County by raquelelpillo (T, 31.5k, historical au)

Nix is born later. Dick is there. (AU)

oh your love is sunlight by acetheticallyy @judesstfrancis (T, 20.2k, modern au)

Nix is kind of an asshole. So is his dog. Dick Winters, most decidedly, is not.

You want some bourbon/I want some oranges by jouissant (M, 18.3k, canon era)

Dick could take a little tedium for the sake of the men, and he could take a hint of moral turpitude for Nix.

Near Symmetry by prewars (not rated, 18k, post-canon)

As his weight shifts across creaking floorboards and he pries open the window of the largest of the three bedrooms, Dick tries to picture himself living in the space. The impossible idea of furniture occupying it, the echoing beats of his footsteps and breathing that would be dampened by rugs and blankets and curtains once furnished. It's difficult. Dick leans out the window slightly, his breath a puff of white, and looks at the property from a different angle. He can almost see through the large oak tree to where the drive connects with the main road, and his drooping mailbox, and the aborted fence that he needs to add to one of his lists.

He takes stock of the house, and feels a tenderness towards it that is slightly embarrassing - he wants to apologize for finding it wanting, for planning to change it, as though the wood of the floors under his feet were heaving sighs every time he moves across it and finds another thing that needs repair.

The 90-Day Wonder by ballantine (T, 12.8k, pre-canon)

The first time he properly meets Dick Winters, it’s two weeks into training at the brand new OCS at Fort Benning.

Lew is coming back from a long night of attempting to chase down something resembling fun in Columbus. It’s past five, the sun won’t make an appearance for another hour or so, and there’s a red-headed weirdo swimming in the cold waters of Upatoi Creek.

Let’s Start the New Year Right by slightlytookish (G, 10.5k, post-canon)

Nix had always been able to pick Dick out of a crowd, even when he was lying on his belly in the dirt two hundred yards away, squinting through binoculars at an entire company of men wearing identical uniforms. It was easier to spot him in the crush of people inside Penn Station, even out of the familiar uniform: the same tall figure, the same bright hair, the same way he always seemed to find Nix just as easily and turn towards him, like an arrow on a compass.

Women In Conversation by shiveringpinkala (G, 6.8k, post-canon)

“You’re supposed to be? Annie, where are you?”

She bit her lip, half-tempted to lie just to keep that disappointed tone out of Dick’s voice. “Grand Central Station?”

“Grand – New York? You're in New York City. Right now?"

(Ann only wanted to see her brother. The can of worms being opened was probably inevitable.)

Ring Out the Old, Ring In the New by rum4life (T, 4.5k, canon era)

Malarkey cranes his neck to look up at Nixon upside down. “Anything we can help you with, sir? Or you just makin’ a social call?”

Nixon clears his throat, feeling uncomfortable for some reason. “Uh- yeah. You seen the XO?”

The Talk by Howling_Harpy (G, 4k, post-canon)

Harry and Dick talk about that.

Kyrie by Issay (M, 2.4k, canon era)

One of Lew's first memories is a deer his grandfather shot and then flayed in the backyard. It wasn't the blood on a green, green grass or the once majestic, now dead and unnaturally still body that made a strong impression on a five year old Lewis Nixon – it was the odor of death.

Fragments on Impulse by atlanticslide (T, 2.2k, canon era)

Dick’s father used to say that impulse was the instrument of fools. Lewis Nixon is a man guided by impulse, but he’s far from a fool, and it’s that contradiction that Dick catches on first in the other man. It intrigues him, but he doesn’t really stop to consider why.

Freestyle by dancinguniverse (G, 1.7k, modern au)

"Oh, you know. Gotta make old dad proud. Three generations of swim champs at Yale. I might not have made the grade as a competitor myself, but at least I'm keeping the tradition alive."

Dick's gaze doesn't waver. "But what do you want?"

Nix's eyes sweep back to him and away, and his mouth turns, a painful looking smile. "No pressure, but I want to win."

Dick studies him him, mouth solemn and straight, waiting until Nix actually looks him in the eye. "So do I."

in coffee spoons by jouissant (G, 1k, post-canon)

Dick kisses Nix for the first time in the kitchen doorway in the house in Nixon.

baberoe (babe heffron/eugene roe)

Lie if God is sleeping by kaasknot (E, 56k, modern au with magic)

Gene flipped the puzzle over to read the back. “My name is Edward Heffron,” he read aloud. “I killed a man, and now I’m paying the price. 18,000 pieces. It will take approximately seven days to complete me. For experienced players only.”

What the fuck was a curse this nasty doing in a Philadelphia used bookstore?

By Small and Small by luxover (T, 43.8k, modern au)

Babe wants to keep talking with Gene, but he doesn’t really know what to say. He feels like, in the past, he never would’ve shut up, but now, since Julian, he’s just got nothing. Maybe that’s grieving; Bill says that’s grieving, anyway, but Bill uses the term like a Band-Aid to put over every aspect of Babe that has changed.

Or: The one where Gene is in med school and Babe's messed up over Julian.

Strange Trails by rivlee (T, 32.1k, modern au with magic)

When their car breaks down just outside of St. Therese, Louisiana, Babe, Bill, Julian, and Spina, go on a bit of an adventure. Featuring far too many dated pop culture references, a bit of rural fantasy, and a dash of Southern Gothic.

Come In From The Cold by rebelsheart (T, 24k, modern au)

In which Smokey Gordon's coffee shop 'Bastogne' saves lives by lending cutting instruments and offering a steady supply of caffeine and sugary goodness. The shenanigans are just a by-product.

Salvage by kaasknot (M, 20.8k, canon era)

Salvage \ˈsalvij\ (n): 1. A soldier accused of homosexual behavior that is judged fit for reclamation. 2. Something worthy of saving.

Flowers for Gene by BristlingBassoon (T, 12k, canon era)

That night in the dark, Babe watches the thin moonlight through the louvres falling across Gene’s face, and realises he’s a real dolt for not thinking to get him flowers before another man did.

say it with your lips on me by rebelsquad (T, 10k, modern au)

Between the new and exciting experiences of dorm life and college life in general, Babe hadn’t thought there could be something more surprising than anything those two things have already thrown at him.

Then he runs into Eugene Roe. Literally.

(Or: "things you said after you kissed me")

Lay Down in the Tall Grass by trill_gutterbug (T, 9.8k, canon era)

Eugene got his first purple heart after the jump into Holland. The jump went well. The landing… less so. He shows Heffron the scar on his calf one night, by the light of a crescent moon on the snow and the tiny smoking cherry of Babe’s cigarette.

until I’m completely broken in by acetheticallyy @judesstfrancis (T, 6.5k, modern au)

At the age of thirteen, Eugene Roe was under the impression that sex was just a big joke that everyone was in on and that one day someone would jump out at him with a “just kidding!” and he’d be able to continue on with his life in peace. But he was only thirteen, after all, maybe he just needed time to grow into the idea.

On Hold by partypakrika (not rated, 5.7k, modern au)

Prompt: Gene is a librarian and Babe went in to borrow ONE BOOK, he swears to god, except somehow he just keeps finding excuses to go back and "Since when did you start spending your friday nights at the library???" "Fuck off, Bill."

piecemeal by dome_epas (not rated, 2.4k, canon era)

Roe knows the rules, but he’s getting desperate, and he’s making bargains.

‘Tis the Season by rivlee (T, 1.9k, modern au)

For HBO War Secret Santa 2015, with the prompt of: Babe/Roe seen from Bull's perspective

Or rather: where there is a bar and a proposal and a Christmas theme.

Leave it all by heartequals (G, 1.4k, post-canon)

On the way home, Heffron uses his head.

#ahhh i hope you like the list anon!!! most of these i've read several times over :) #band of brothers #hbo war #fic rec #hbo war fic rec #band of brothers fic rec #fanfiction #winnix #baberoe #answered #anon