LINKDING

Summary: <blockquote>Even from the bar's parking lot, Lan Wangji could feel the presence of the spirits inside. This place was haunted. There was evidence of demonic cultivation everywhere from the wards to Wei Wuxian's bed. Lest he crawl back into it, Lan Wangji unsheathed Bichen and climbed on.</blockquote> ➤ mdzs wangxian modern-with-cultivation au where lwj is a trans man and wwx is a trans woman ➤ and ahhhh it just makes me so emotional about how GREAT wangxian are!!! ➤ wonderfully integrated characters/plot into a world they inhabit where friends and work and weird tastes in books are part of their lives, and also, lwj and wwx find each other and are immediately obsessed with each other, finding something in each other that allow them to best be themselves ➤ so many very funny details also, at the same time that it's many feelings ➤ 10k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>In which Lan Zhan makes a friend at a quilt show.</blockquote> ➤ a super cute modern au where wangxian are quilters! I love how much the author is clearly familiar with quilting and is able to imbue the fic with insider perspectives on the art/hobby ➤ I love when writers port "these characters are super skilled at The Thing The Show Is About" into a completely different domain like this, especially when it's a domain that doesn't get much attention from fandom usually! ➤ the dynamics between wwx and lwj are also so fun, the way they click so easily, and push each other, and inspire each other, and love each other ➤ also I dearly want to see all the quilts that are described in the fic lol ➤ 5k words in length

Summary: <blockquote>Lan Zhan’s expression had turned in on itself, more determined now. He leaned in and traced a line of carefully spaced kisses down Wei Ying’s collarbone, lingering over each one. Wei Ying would have been squirming, if he could feel it. Demanding more, faster, asking to be overwhelmed. He wondered if his heart was beating any faster. He felt as if a heartbeat was somehow shaking even his paper body. Imagination rather than a trace of the spell, he was fairly sure. There was nothing in the magic that should let a scrap of paper feel yearning. Or: Wei Ying and Lan Zhan do some experimenting. For SCIENCE.</blockquote>

Summary: <blockquote>Thinking about wlw Wei Ying wearing skimpier and skimpier outfits to do her early morning workouts in the living room of the apartment she shares with Lan Zhan. She’s never worked out so much before, but Lan Zhan looks so good with delicately flushed ears and a flat startled look.</blockquote>

Summary: <blockquote>It isn't even an accident, precisely—that might be the most humiliating thing about it. Lan Wangji had tasted the tea, expecting it to be precisely what it revealed itself to be; Lan Wangji had wanted to feel its effects, to gauge them, although he had expected them to be mild. He had brewed the tea himself. An entirely uncoerced and foolish act. Lan Wangji has a misadventure with an aphrodisiac. It works out for everyone.</blockquote>

Summary: <blockquote>Wei Ying's fertile mind was always pleasing to him, even when he did not recognize all the fruits that grew there.</blockquote> ➤ wwx and lwj indulging in sexy roleplay scenarios

Summary: <blockquote>Or, 'five times Wei Wuxian broke the rules, and one time Lan Qiren broke them instead'. In which Lan Qiren learns, reflects, and comes to know the man now married to his nephew.</blockquote> ➤ lqr pov

Summary: <blockquote>Minutes turned into hours, and the shrills of agony puncturing through the walls of the courier station did not stop. Sometimes they would diminish, even silent for a moment, before exploding into a battered howl, enough to make the wind shiver. Still, Lan Wangji did not move.</blockquote> ➤author's note: <blockquote>So yesterday i may have had a realization on twitter about why, near the end of the novel, wwx says that "you dont like when i say thank you to you" and cited the courier station as a time when he said "thank you", when he never did. I thought it might have been just an overlook by MXTX, but it was still odd considering MDZS had been revised at this point. Then I thought about how LWJ didn't leave, but waited downstairs, and that they might still have had a short interaction that day. So, this happened! It follows right after chapter 62, when LWJ walks downstairs the courier station while JC and WWX stay to kill Wen Chao, so you might wanna re-read that part (if you're able) just to refresh your mind.</blockquote> ➤ oof

<blockquote>The next time he saw the seal, his searching gaze found no more certainty in the pattern of mottled black spots in the sleek, short fur, but there was no question that it was the same seal. It rolled before diving, showing a flash of the same brand that had marred the chest of the sealcoat and made it cheap enough for him to buy. / Years after their marriage, Wei Wuxian returns from the sea.</blockquote>

<blockquote> The rules and principles of his sect had always given Lan Qiren structure and purpose beyond the frailty of human attachments. Once, he had believed that his nephews were, in this, his mirror. The years and their events eroded this belief. In its place, he was starting to see a different kind of trust in his family and his sect. One that could bend with the pressure of time and not always break. </blockquote>

<blockquote>“Lan Zhan here really surprised me. When we first met, I thought ‘now here’s a guy who could probably bite my head off if I annoy him,’ but then he didn’t? You know, all of our friends in Seoul would say I’m the shameless one, but I have no idea what they’re talking about, like, have they met Lan Zhan? Gege, you’re kind of crazy.” “Mn,” says Wangji, sounding very pleased. “It’s okay though, I like crazy. Hey, Xichen-ge—can I call you Xichen-ge?—anyway, do you mind if I add a little something to my tea?” “We do not imbibe alcohol in this house,” Shufu seethes. “It’s not alcohol,” Wei Ying corrects like he expected to hear this at some point. Xichen glances at Wangji, who’s making an expression Xichen has never seen before: unbridled exasperation and fondness. Then Wei Ying pulls out a pack of what Xichen is pretty sure is chili powder. / Basically a modern AU where lwj and wwx both take a semester abroad while in college. They were originally in different colleges and never met before. They meet in this new college and being the weirdos they truly are, fall in love and get married within one semester.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Mianmian sets her drink down on the floor with a clink. “If she’s that perfect, it’s no wonder she can put up with you two.” The room goes silent. Across the room, Wen Qing’s expression has morphed from this might be a crisis to this is absolutely a crisis and we need damage control, stat. Jiang Wanyin bristles, opens his mouth to say something mean in response. Lan Wangji is more worried about Wei Ying, who has gone very, very still beside him. He knows that Wei Ying’s relationship with his adoptive family is complicated—a web of obligations and resentment that might never be untangled; he knows that Wei Ying constantly felt like a burden, and that Jiang Yanli was the only one who offered unconditional affection. / or, lan zhan reflects on sibling relationships while wei ying scrambles to get his jiejie the perfect birthday gift</blockquote> ➤ unfinished, possibly abandoned, but the one chapter stands alone just fine

<blockquote>untamed social media au but they're all in an unrelated fandom and it's way more focused on their opinions than their interpersonal drama</blockquote>

<blockquote>“You’re about to tell me you’re going to marry him someday,” Jiang Yanli said. “Uh,” Wei Ying replied. His hesitation had not been what she was expecting. He had been sounding so sure! “Well. I suppose.” “You suppose?” “It’s true that I am going to marry him someday, if by ‘someday’ you mean, specifically, yesterday.” / A sober woke-up-married-in-Vegas fic</blockquote> ➤ woke up married (but totally remember what they did and are on board with the decision), the outside pov is for the first half

<blockquote>Wen Qing rubs her cheek against Wei Ying’s shirt—in the way a cat might when pretending it's not about to bite you—and says absently, “Your tits are almost bigger than mine.” Through the haze of Grandaddy Purple, something clicks into place in the rat maze of Wei Ying’s brain and a sincere, “I wish they were,” falls out before he can stop it. / Wei Ying wants tits and has some Gender about it.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Lan Zhan finds A-Yuan lost in the railway station. He maybe finds more than he bargined for. Some mornings you leave for the office and come back with a son (and possibly a husband too). cw. lost child and the fears that surround that, but nothing bad happens to A-Yuan. Loss and grief lightly touched on.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Today, with a formal missive from Koi Tower in hand and Zonghui staring at him with open concern, Nie Mingjue throws his head back and laughs and knows that no request will ever bring him such joy: Sect Leader Jin Guangshan has been brutally assaulted and, due to a conflict of interest, the Jin sect begs the assistance of the Honorable Sect Leader Nie Mingjue in the search for justice. / Wei Ying was raised in a brothel in Yunping, and Sect Leader Jin is having a very bad day.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Okay!” says Wei Ying, already taking another customer’s order. “I’ll find you later! Remember, though, you have to be nice about my act – I thrive on praise!” Wangji finds a table for three. He sits down, maintaining a white-knuckled grip on what remains of his virgin pina colada. He stares at it, morose and – for the first time in his life – unbearably horny. I am also a virgin, he thinks, as though a non-alcoholic beverage is in any way capable of reciprocating his sudden kinship with it, and tries not to think about other, considerably more naked contexts in which Wei Ying might be said to thrive on praise.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“Still, if I knew you were coming I’d have put something on.” Wei Ying rolled his shoulders back. He had tied up his hair, but a curl of it escaped and clung to his damp neck. “This is no way to greet the chief cultivator. Sometimes I bring a shirt if I expect to run into impressionable maidens, but most days it’s just me and Little Apple.” Five odd jobs Wei Wuxian took during his post-canon wandering, the people he met, and how he returned in the end.</blockquote>

<blockquote>“No. This is fucking insane. You can’t just move across the country for the first guy who says he likes you.” Jiang Cheng’s words hit Lan Zhan like the figurative wrecking ball. The first guy. Does that mean what it sounds like it means? “I’m telling jie,” Jiang Cheng says. There’s a ‘bloop’ as he removes himself from the voice channel.</blockquote> ➤ sequel to "the earthquake in the room"

<blockquote>Lan Zhan shuts his eyes in exasperation. Lan Huan’s “Head Up and Heels Down,” shirt is confusing enough to the average person without being actively suggestive. (Every time Wei Ying sees it he proceeds to sing, “Heels down, head up, that’s the way we like to fuck!” under his breath, so the line for “actively suggestive” is… mutable.) He can’t imagine the kind of top stampede his extremely gay brother would cause by going out of the house in a t-shirt announcing, for all intents and purposes, his desire to be the star of an orgy. He tries very hard not to picture either the stampede or the orgy. “Why would you even want sixteen hands between your legs, anyway?” Wei Ying asks the room at large, sounding genuinely curious. “What would they do? I feel like at a certain point there’s, like, diminishing returns, right?” Ah. The mental image of Lan Huan’s Top Stampede has been replaced with a mental image that is both better and worse: Wei Ying as the centerpiece of a nine-person orgy. Or: A Horse Girl throw pillow, and what comes after.</blockquote> ➤ I love all the yes -anding absurdist humour, how well lwj&wwx clearly know each other, the affection and delight they have in each other!

<blockquote>Wei Ying looks back at him now, a furrow between his eyebrows. Lan Zhan reaches out and smooths it away with his thumb, then trails his hand down to rest on Wei Ying’s cheek. Lets it rest there, feeling the heat beneath his palm. Do you understand? “Yeah.” Wei Ying closes his eyes, leans into the touch. “Okay, Lan Zhan. Sorry.” Lan Zhan nudges Wei Ying’s face and shakes his head. No apologies. The whole thing is, as Wei Ying had said, weird. Lan Zhan is used to not speaking. He’s only realized now that it was nice to have the option. (Or: Lan Zhan and Wei Ying have been together for twelve days, and Lan Zhan is cursed.)</blockquote> ➤ "the Softness is the plot actually" as one of the tags says and YEAH actually!! which is really cool!

<blockquote>Wei Ying makes his voice bright and says, “Well, take this one!” and deposits A-Yuan into Mo Xuanyu’s arms, and this time the look on his face isn’t just an almost smile. A-Yuan fists a chubby hand in his hair and gazes that way babies do, open and amazed. “Gah!” he says. “Gah!” Mo Xuanyu says right back. / Or: Mo Xuanyu finds a home for himself.</blockquote> ➤ love wwx's voice in this fic

<blockquote>Hanguang-jun is dating a mild mannered, non-cultivator named Wei Wuxian. The Yiling Laozu rolls up to a nighthunt on a motorbike, no relation at all to the previous statement.</blockquote> ➤ love the confidence with which this story is itself

<blockquote>Lan Zhan, on the other hand, is a delicate flower from Shanghai, yet he wakes up every morning to go jogging around the campus in a tracksuit that Wei Ying is sure he would find sexy if he was ever awake to observe it. In contrast, while Wei Ying is technically the more winter-savvy, he beat Nie Huaisang at fourteen days without leaving the hodge-podge of tunnels and walkways connecting the university’s sprawl, even if it was only because Huaisang’s professor wouldn’t answer his email last week.</blockquote>

<blockquote>The Wens are safe, the tiger amulet is out of Jin Guangshan's hands, and Wei Wuxian is going to cooperate when Hanguang Jun puts him down like a rabid dog. It's not the end to his story he wanted, but it's one he can accept.</blockquote>

<blockquote>It was meant to be the best way out of a bad situation. In other words, Lan Qiren reflected, it had been a stupid idea the entire time, they had known it was a stupid idea, and they’d all collectively decided to charge straight forward into it regardless. And the worst of it was: it had been his idea, too.</blockquote> ➤ the one where lwj gets ghost married to wwx during the time wwx is dead

<blockquote>In his recent article in Contemporary Theories of Cultivation, Lan (2019) sets out to study the correlation between instrument choice and outcomes in the liberation of spirits. While his main thesis appears sound, his decision to limit the study to the qin, dizi, xiao and pipa undermines his conclusions. This decision falls prey to the fallacy that tradition cannot be questioned. It ignores, too, the fact that many practising cultivators will encounter spirits that will have no exposure to such “expectations.” In a small study comparing the use of a dizi with a theremin—undoubtedly a non-traditional choice—the theremin produced optimal outcomes in liberating spirits where: time since death was less than 6 months; spirit was younger than 25 and older than 17 at time of death; or spirit motivation included aspects of revenge. The conclusions reached in Lan (2019), while providing a foundation for future study, are therefore as yet incomplete. Mo Xuanyu Cultivation Studies, Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, and musical cultivation: a love story, told through academic articles, emails, texts, and videos.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Lan Wangji finds he doesn't even need to call for help for Wei Wuxian to come running.</blockquote> ➤ ft wwx being very competent

<blockquote>It takes half a year of being married to a human before Wei Wuxian learns that he can, in fact, have intercourse with his husband.</blockquote> ➤ I love human/nonhuman pairings from the pov of the nonhuman, so the human is the alien