Summary: “This is slightly embarrassing,” Lan Xichen says, “but I urgently need a pet-sitter."

Mojo's comments: In which wwx is at the end of his rope, coreless, homesless, hurt and hungry, when he gets an offer to pet-sit lxc's suddenly-acquired rabbit. And of course, once wwx is FINALLY somewhere warm and safe, he might just unburden himself of a few secrets, no matter how judgemental this bunny may seem.

Kay's comments: Ah, my heart breaks for Wei Wuxian in this story! It hurt, it hurt so good and I loved every moment of it. In which Wei Wuxian, who's been living in his car and is going through a rough time, receives a late-night call by Lan Xichen who asks him to be an emergency pet-sitter, because he leaves and somebody needs to watch his bunny. Wei Wuxian agrees and looks forward to sleeping on a bed and enjoying a hot shower for once and then he spends a week with the rabbit, who's lovely company, especially considering how lonely Wei Wuxian has been feeling. I loved the modern with cultivation aspect in this story, loved how Wangxian's relationship and misunderstandings were mirrored and how it all got resolved. Prepare for lots of angst and whump though!

Excerpt: “This is… Baozi,” says Lan Xichen, almost apologetically. “Baozi, Wei Ying is going to watch you while I’m away.” “Baozi!” says Wei Ying, sufficiently delighted that he forgets to be self-conscious. Who knew the First Jade of Lan owned an adorable, whimsically-named bunny! “Does he like to be picked up?” “We’re still establishing boundaries in that regard,” says Lan Xichen dryly. “Baozi is a… a new acquisition. He is generally very well-behaved –” he shoots the rabbit a look of fond exasperation which, being a rabbit, it is presumably incapable of interpreting, “– but I’m not sure how he’ll react to others.” Nodding, Wei Ying crouches down, wincing slightly at the pain in his hip, and extends his fingers for Baozi’s inspection. Despite its stern expression, the rabbit deigns to give him a single polite sniff. Wei Ying laughs and slowly pats him, head to haunch, marveling at the soft fur; he does this twice before Baozi shoots him an affronted look and hops pointedly out of reach, hiding beneath Lan Xichen’s bedside table. “Does he have a hutch?” Wei Ying asks, straightening. He doesn’t know much about rabbit ownership, but he has a nebulous idea that hay is involved somehow. “Ah,” says Lan Xichen, seeming slightly embarrassed. “That is – no.” He hesitates, then says, “Baozi is – was – the spiritual animal companion of my great-aunt, Lan Yi, who recently passed away. She lived a very long life, and Baozi was with her for most of it; with his master dead, his spiritual faculties are significantly diminished, but he’s far from being an ordinary rabbit.” His brow furrows. “Truthfully, we don’t know why he survived her death – as tightly bonded as they were, it doesn’t make any sense. And yet –” He gestures helplessly towards Baozi, whose ears are now laid flat.

Summary: The window slid open with ease and Wei Ying climbed out into the tree. He would get settled somewhere and then write to Lan Zhan. They could exchange letters, until Wei Ying managed to afford a phone so they could talk. Maybe Lan Zhan could visit him. Wei Ying stole away into the night, not then aware of what else he was taking away with him. He wouldn’t know for another four months the gift Lan Zhan had given him, growing inside him. He also didn’t know that he would never get any replies back from his letters to Lan Zhan. Thirteen years after Wei Ying received no response to his letters about their son, he meets Lan Zhan again.

Kay's comments: The angst in this story is exquisite! Omega Wei Ying was forced to leave in the dark of the night, but first he went to said goodbye to Alpha Lan Zhan. Their goodbye turns heated and Wei Wuxian ends up pregnant. Once he's settled in his new home, he immediately writes a letter to Lan Zhan and then he writes again and again and again, but never receives a reply. Cue thirteen years later when they finally meet again and all comes to light! The anguish! The hurt! The comfort! I really enjoyed it! And, because this is very important to me: all misunderstandings between Wangxian are very believeable and nobody's feelings get belittled/no one gets painted as dumb for not getting it.

Excerpt: The Wens had been amazing. Within a week they had moved Wen Ning out of the room next to Wei Ying’s and down to the middle floor with Wen Qing and Popo, giving him the whole top floor with a room ready to become a nursery. When he had suggested moving out, to save them from a crying baby in the middle of the night, Popo had lamented that he was trying to steal away her grandchild before he was even born. He had cried that night, finally feeling like part of a family who saw him as a gift and not a burden. He had sent a copy of his first scan to Lan Zhan, anxiously waiting for a reply that would never come. When he had A-Yuan, Wen Qing had taken a photo of them together. A-Yuan had been wrinkly and red, so ugly it was hilarious, while still the most beautiful thing Wei Ying had ever seen. Wei Ying himself had been exhausted in the photo, yet glowing with joy while looking at A-Yuan. That had been the photo he had sent to Lan Zhan. The letter had said it would be the last he would send if he received no reply. Sick with grief and overwhelmed with delight in their son, Wei Ying had waited. And waited. On A-Yuan’s first birthday, Wen Qing had poured Wei Ying a beer and said, “He’s not going to write back.” Wei Ying had cried about it that night, wished that he had been good enough for Lan Zhan, then sworn to move on.

Summary: The day that Zhao Zhuliu turns fifteen and receives his courtesy name, his father pulls him aside and says, "There is a secret you must know." A Wen Zhuliu origin story, in which Zhao Zhuliu inherits his late mother's core-melting ability and promises his father he will never use it. When he breaks this vow, both of them suffer the consequences. He finds an unexpected savior in Wen Ruohan.

Kay's comments: I have a weakness for Wen Zhuliu and I'm always curious how people make up his origin story, so I really enjoyed this one! Heart-breaking for Wen Zhuliu and ah, it makes so much sense!

Excerpt: And Zhao Zhuliu's throat grows tight with fear. For in addition to his golden core--pulsing bright and strong within him—there is something else he has noticed in his lower dantian. A dark hunger that flows sinuously alongside his spiritual energy—never hurting it, or corrupting it (not yet, not yet)—but desiring it with a hunger that never seems to cease. "You know," says his father from the shadows. "You have it." Zhao Zhuliu nods slowly. "Yes," he says, barely a whisper.

Summary: When Lan Wangji gives himself up to Wen Xu at the Cloud Recesses, he does not expect Wen Xu to take him as a warprize and turn him into his concubine. After escaping during the Qishan Wen Indoctrination, he sacrifices himself once more to ensure Wei Wuxian's safe return to Lotus Pier. Unfortunately, Wen Chao succeeds in taking over Lotus Pier anyway, claiming Wei Wuxian as his own warprize in revenge for killing his lover. Afterward, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji do their best to protect each other in the brief moments that they reunite, while working independently to take down Qishan Wen from the inside.

Summary: When Lan Wangji gives himself up to Wen Xu at the Cloud Recesses, he does not expect Wen Xu to take him as a warprize and turn him into his concubine. After escaping during the Qishan Wen indoctrination, he sacrifices himself once more to ensure Wei Wuxian's safe return to Lotus Pier. Unfortunately, Wen Chao succeeds in taking over Lotus Pier anyway, claiming Wei Wuxian as his own warprize in revenge for killing his lover. Afterward, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji do their best to protect each other in the brief moments that they reunite, while working independently to take down Qishan Wen from the inside.

Summary: When Sizhui, Jingyi, and Zizhen are captured with Jin Ling at the Guanyin Temple, they're sure that Hanguang Jun and Wei Wuxian will fix everything - until Su She stabs Lan Wangji through the stomach, and everything falls apart around them. In a last, frantic attempt to undo the damage Jin Guangyao has done, Wei Wuxian activates a deadly array to send the four juniors back in time, sending them to the morning of Jin Ling's one-month celebration. With the fate of everyone and everything they love in their hands, Sizhui, Jin Ling, Zizhen and Jingyi race to prevent the ambush at Qiongqi Pass and the subsequent fallout, but Jin Guangyao has returned from the future as well, and he has no intention of letting what he wants fall through his hands a second time.

My comments: Okay, wow, this was so epic, it's hard to break down. The gist of it is that the four juniors get sent back in time from a moment of utter tragedy and overwhelming loss to fix the future. So they're all pretty fucking traumatized from the get-go. (Future Jin Guangyao is a complete and terrifying psychopath.)

If I had to pick 3 tags to describe the story it'd be WHUMP, H/C and BONDING. So, author doesn't hold back on the violence, which I fully endorse and devour. (I might have rated this one an M, actually, just for graphic violence and stressful situations.) Everyone gets a turn to be utterly beat up if not straight up tortured. POV is multiple, and that includes everyone (I never expected to admire and empathize with Jin Zixuan so much!). BUT, before you run away screaming, know that there is soooo much comfort and healing and bonding going on, throughout whatever the current trauma is (there are many) as well as after. I did a quick search, and there are 102 uses of "I love you", and it's not limited to wangxian. wwx says it to jiang cheng and a-yuan and all the poor time-travelling teens who have just lost everything and everyone in their entire worlds and suddenly are only a few years younger than their 'fathers'. The juniors say it to each other and their dads. jyl says it to everyone. the lan bros say it, the nie brothers say it. Everybody is just so fucking supportive and trying so hard and they just have faced what a world could be like if they DON'T communicate, and so by god, they're not gonna go that route, and also, no one's gonna let them forget it.

I really, really loved how all the time travelers latched onto their 'parents' and the relationships that they grew: with them, with their families and with their itty bitty counterparts. It highlighted the Juniors' innocence (and trauma) to be compared to people only a few years older and yet so much more mature and experienced because of having been through the war.

So. An epic, plotty, TASTY time travel fix it that features everyone and the way they all fit into each other's lives, getting into situations that are truly terrifying that have NO EXIT, being hurt and watching it happen to people you love, and lots of escapes-by-the-skin-of-their-teeth-and-please-god-are-they-still-breathing. It's an excellent and satisfying balance.

Summary:  When Wen Chao and his entourage arrived in Cloud Recesses, Lan Wangji saw that all the things he'd been told about the arrogance of the Wen clan were true. Wen Qing was aloof, Wen Ning was distant, and Wei Wuxian?

Disrespectful, cocky, self-centered Wei Wuxian was the worst.

My comments:  [gotta start by saying the author's notes are hilarious, because they start like, "it'll be 16 chapters and I'll be finished in 2 weeks".... and then, you look at the word count, and chapter count, and laugh]

Okay, whew, lordy me. This one was intense, and deals with serious issues like abuse, torture and rape (much of it happens off screen, but the characters have to deal with it, and the repercussions, and it's heavy. I like Author's style: the story is all lwj POV and is constantly interspersed with his interior monologue, which is lovely, because overall, what we've got here is a tale about learning to heal, learning to grow, learning from past mistakes or past trauma and letting it make you into a better person.

Lwj quickly learns (after getting wwx disciplined for the alcohol and banned from cloud recesses) that maybe the way he's been living, and the rigid way he perceives the world is wrong -- even abusive -- and wwx and his family (wen qing and wen ning) help him to see that life isn't so black and white. Regardless, wwx is sent back to Nightless City, and they all know he's being hurt. Lwj is hurt, too, during the attack on cloud recesses and through the indoctrination.

The war is long, and lwj and wwx mainly communicate by letters, as wwx lays waste to the countryside (because he must) and lwj fights him (because he must).

Lan Xichen and Nie Huaisang have great character development arcs, too, and are a good foil for lwj, with their full submersion in politics and playing the political game. (lwj even has two names for his brother, lan huan for when he's acting as a brother, and lan xichen when he's acting for the sect.) And whether he's in a bloodbath of stress of a quiet interlude, lwj is constantly evaluating his and other people's ethics, probing into the nature of right and wrong. And despising politics, because it surrounds him and prevents people from doing what is right and good.

There's a lot of healing and therapy (although of course it isn't called that), too, to balance out the trauma, and the love and devotion lwj feels for wwx is incandescent (once he figures out that's what he's feeling). It's a great story, but be sure to be in the right head-space for it, and give it the time it deserves.

Summary:  Sizhui is angry. 

My comments:  Oooh, when Lan Sizhui starts thinking about the hypocrisy of the Lans with respect to their treatment of the Wens and 'discipline' of Lan Wangji, he Does Something About It. This is so satisfying. 

Summary: When a lone Wen cultivator arrives at the Cloud Recesses and seeks out the last surviving child of his sect, Lan Zhan experiences a crisis of the heart.

Or: A-Yuan’s past and present collide, and Hanguang-jun wants what is best for his son, even if it pains him.

My comments: I am sobbing.

Summary: Despite everything, there was one naked truth that defied denial. Sizhui hadn’t asked Jin Ling to come because he’d thought Jin Ling would appreciate one last hurrah, a final night-hunt to blow off steam on fierce corpses instead of potential sect allies or enemies. Sizhui had selfishly wanted to have Jin Ling by his side once more, one last time before everything changed and he became untouchable, unreachable as Sect Leader Jin. To be completely honest, he didn’t care what happened to the Lanling Jin Sect. He only wanted Jin Ling to be safe because he cared about him, more than he ought.

My comment:  Sizhui and Jin Ling are in a forest, terribly injured from a beast, frightened and trying to survive. All Sizhui POV, and he’s desperate to be the older one, to protect Jin Ling from further harm (to the point of ignoring his own injuries). But Jin Ling is having none of that.

Jingyi, who was injured in the very beginning, is off to get help, but it takes a couple of days, and meanwhile Sizhui and Jin Ling are on their own. It’s very sweet, they eventually confess they’re in love and have some (injured) smexy-times… all very romantic… but then the beast returns.

In the end, Sizuih is very nearly dead, and Jin Ling vanishes for a month with his sect to clear out the forest, and Sizhui begins to question his commitment….

Summary:  “There were rumors, of course there were. Some were more…more creative than others. As far as he was concerned, though, it mattered little if his son was a found changeling or his illegitimate offspring. A-Yuan was his son, and that was that.”

My comments:  Lan Wangji is the best Daddy ever FIGHT ME. Even when he’s half dead from whipping and pain he’s A'Yuan’s comfort.

And little Sizhui feeling so bad because he doesn’t live up to expectations for being the son of the great and powerful Huangong Jun because his core is tiny and dormant. Until that one time. And it turns out that Sizhui’s core is just radically different….

Summary:  Lan Wangji spends four days in captivity alone, in pain, and grieving before disciples from other sects arrive at Qishan.

My comments:  Oh, my heart just breaks for him, poor baby, so isolated and hurt and afraid, yet so determined to show NONE of it to his captors.

***Be sure to check out the gifset/tags Author links as inspiration.

Summary:  A year after Jin Ling's early succession to the position of Sect Leader, a letter is delivered to him under strange circumstances. A night-hunt follows.

Hanguang-Jun shook his head, and played again. This time, the response was slower, almost coy.

“What did it say?” Jin Ling asked.

“Hanguang-Jun asked what it was doing here,” Lan Sizhui translated. “The response was ‘Waiting.’”

My comments:  Excellent case fic from Jin Ling's POV in which he, Lan Sizhui, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji go to a small town in Qishan (late of the Wens) to investigate what's been luring and vanishing cultivators. Wei Wuxian uses Empathy to try to get the full story, and that turns out to be a terrible mistake. The creature, whatever it is, is incredibly old and powerful and this group of four is hard pressed to simply survive, much less prevail.

The situation is terrifying, especially for someone as young and inexperienced as Jin Ling. They experience whump, helplessness, depletion of power, the fear of seeing their reliable grown-ups unable to help them. The boys eventually have to make the choice of whether to stay (and maybe all of them dying) or leave to get help. If they can even make it out.

Dark and stormy, danger and isolation. It's pretty delicious.

Excerpt [This excerpt doesn't encapsulate the story, but it struck me as funny, so here you go]:

“And what a strange coincidence that you just happened to fall right where I was working on my special project, hm?”

Jin Ling flared up with an indignant realization. “Did you throw a goose at me?!”

“Were you trying to sneak up on me?” Wei Wuxian raised an eyebrow, and Jin Ling crossed his arms.

“No!” he lied, rapidly switching to the offensive. “How could you accuse me of that? Do you attack all passing travelers with whatever bird is at hand?!”

Summary:  13 years ago, Wei Wuxian ran away from what he had done, turning his back on his friends, his family, his future, and the one person who had began to matter to him the most.

Now, on the cusp of thirty, Wei Ying finds himself back where it all started with a low profile job, exactly two friends in all of the country, a masked neighbor who seems to be a different person entirely than what everyone says, and too many memories he would rather forget.

At the same time, his old classmates are turning up dead in a grisly manner...and the prime suspect is him. Worst of all, the head investigator for the case is none other than Lan Wangji, the person Wei Ying wants to avoid at all costs.

My comments:  Very interesting case fic. Wei Wuxian maybe killed Jin Zixuan 13 years prior, under murky circumstances, and then shijie killed herself;  so he's stayed away all that time.  Within a few days of his return bodies start piling up... all people who had bullied him during his time at Cloud Recesses. Jingyi (a young detective on the case) is pretty convinced it's him, but when Lan Wangji finally returns (he shows up in Ch. 6), he puts an immediate stop to THAT line of inquiry. The juniors are all completely thrown, because clearly there is HISTORY between their boss/uncle/father and their primary suspect. So who IS he?

POV jumps around to EVERYBODY, which is immersive and revealing. The primary characters are Mo Xuanyu (lonely and traumatized) and Xue Yang (homeless and only mildly sociopathic) and Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. We follow the juniors around a lot, too, as they learn how to investigate and draw conclusions. I adored Xue Yang and Mo Xuanyu and the way they very slowly and cautiously revealed themselves.

About halfway through, story turns from investigative case fic (with intriguing tastes of Whatever Happened Back Then) to a much faster-paced threatening culmination where slowly everyone is hurt or beaten or incapacitated from the shadows. There is SO much whump. Whole second part is mostly at a hospital, where any time they turn their backs someone else is hurt. And then Mo Xuanyu and Xue Yang are kidnapped (and lightly tortured) and the bubbling situation begins to come to a head....

Graphic Depictions of Violence and no smut.

****

I gotta say I love Wen Xu in this. I've never even considered him as a character, and this story has changed my mind. Also, he spawned THIS precious paragraph, and now I'm completely won over:

“Hmm.” Wen Xu said. He reached over and peeled back the lid of a creamer, drinking it straight, with no care as to how others perceived him. He ripped open a sugar and poured it into where the creamer had been. It was such a fascinating display of randomness that Huaisang couldn’t pull his eyes away from it.

Summary:  Despite everything, there was one naked truth that defied denial. Sizhui hadn’t asked Jin Ling to come because he’d thought Jin Ling would appreciate one last hurrah, a final night-hunt to blow off steam on fierce corpses instead of potential sect allies or enemies. Sizhui had selfishly wanted to have Jin Ling by his side once more, one last time before everything changed and he became untouchable, unreachable as Sect Leader Jin. To be completely honest, he didn’t care what happened to the Lanling Jin Sect. He only wanted Jin Ling to be safe because he cared about him, more than he ought.

My comments:  [I don’t give away the ending, but I do go pretty deep into the story in my comments, which some may consider spoilers.]

Sizhui and Jin Ling are in a forest, terribly injured from a beast, frightened and trying to survive. All Sizhui POV, and he's desperate to be the older one, to protect Jin Ling from further harm (to the point of ignoring his own injuries). But Jin Ling is having none of that.

Jingyi, who was injured in the very beginning, is off to get help, but it takes a couple of days, and meanwhile Sizhui and Jin Ling are on their own. It's very sweet, they eventually confess they're in love and have some (injured) smexy-times... all very romantic... but then the beast returns.

In the end, Sizuih is very nearly dead, and Jin Ling vanishes for a month with his sect to clear out the forest, and Sizhui begins to question his commitment....

Summary:  The discipline whips of Gusu Lan are imbued with spiritual power and a curse, perhaps the only bit of resentful energy that the puritan Lan sect allows in the Cloud Recesses. The scars will never fade, and the pain returns. Once a year, for the rest of their life, however long they live, the wounds on the back of the punished will open and bleed again, as though they were newly inflicted. This ensures a lifelong repentance, a physical reminder of the punishment of being led astray.

Once a year, the second Jade of Lan wakes to unimaginable pain, bloody sheets, and conversations he would rather not have.

My comments:  (2/3 chapters so far.)  Lan Wangji is hurt. And then hurt again. And again. In Ch 1, Xichen stands with him, and helps him to hold on. Ch 2 features Sizhui, now 15 and night hunting, appalled and frightened by what is happening to his father. Ch 3, if it gets written, should feature Wei Wuxian.  Delicious hurt/comfort.

Summary:  It's not that Jiang Cheng wanted to go to the ball the palace was throwing. He didn't want to marry the second Prince

He just wanted to enjoy the glitz and glamour for a bit.

When his mother bans him from attending he gets a little help from Nie HuaiSang and despite his better judgement sneaks in.

Will three nights be enough time for Jiang Cheng, Jiang YanLi and Wei WuXian to prove themselves and escape Madam Yu?

My comments:  A sort of Cinderella au in which Jiang Cheng is terribly abused by Madam Yu while his brother and sister are treated like royalty.  (Unlike Cinderella, the older siblings don’t like how their little brother is treated.)  They get a chance to go to the Lan Palace and demonstrate their quality.