MDZS/CQL Fic Rec Masterlist
I did one of these for TAZ a million years ago and its fun to look back at to see which fics I considered must reads, so I wanted to do one for MDZS as well :)
My bookmarks on AO3 are also public, though I also use it to save things for later (for easier filtering than the Mark for Later feature) so I haven't read everything in there.
And remembering again the full extent of what forever is by Vulpeculate
In which Wei Ying plants a garden, and earth is overturned.
Boy Trouble, We've Got Double by saltyfeathers
Lan Zhan stands there in his immaculate, cloud-patterned Lan robes, watching him calmly, one fist tucked up against his back. “I am betrothed.”
Wei Wuxian blinks. “Are you…” He tries to laugh. Again, it sounds inhuman. “Is this about last night? Are you mad at me? I only remember some of it, Lan Zhan. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I’m sure whatever I did I was just—” He gestures uselessly. He remembers being warm in Lan Zhan’s lap. He remembers fitting snugly in Lan Zhan’s lap. Wrapping his arms around Lan Zhan’s neck. Nosing at his jaw. “…playing around.”
“This has nothing to do with you, Wei Wuxian.”
out in the garden, there's things you hid away by saltyfeathers
There is a man with empty eye sockets and tears of fire in Wei Wuxian’s dreams. Tendrils of smoke curl around him in sleep, pressing at his most vulnerable spots, seeking entrance, slipping between his ribs.
When he ignores Lan Zhan's offers of help, he declines rapidly. He will die. Or, he should. Anyone else would.
Instead, he flees. And transforms.
ALL TIME FAVE FOREVERRRRR
anyway, here's wuji by kakikaeru
The melody gets a little clearer when he breaks out of the trees, and Jingyi changes course with certainty, barreling down the back hill and through the Cloud Recesses, dodging scandalized disciples left and right. He throws open the doors to the Receiving Hall without announcement and bows nearly double, eyes on the floor instead of on the shocked faces of the Mei delegation and the impenetrable gaze of the Chief Cultivator.
"Forgive this disciple," Jingyi shouts, because he's going to get punished for rule breaking regardless. "From the back hill, Hanguang-jun, there is a song in the wind!"
kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight by AlfAlfAlfAlfAlf and tardigradeschool
The young man blinks at him. Wei Yuan doesn’t spend much time staring at his own face in the mirror, but he knows his reflection well enough; the dark eyes, the straight nose, the round face that comes to a pointed chin. This boy could be his exact double.
“Who are you?” the Lan boy facing him asks, tilting his head. He’s got a hand on his sword, but he hasn’t drawn it yet. There’s a faint frown on his face. “Some kind of face-stealing spirit? A demon?”
“Pretty rude to go around calling people demons,” Wei Yuan protests.
--
Or, Wei Wuxian, presumed dead by the cultivation world, raises one Wen twin. Lan Wangji, presumed dead by Wei Wuxian, raises the other. A Parent Trap AU.
build me no shrines by occultings (microcomets) (@microcomets)
A few months after the events of Guanyin Temple, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji take on a night hunt of an unusual sort: The Burial Mounds are spreading, quickly and with no apparent explanation.
In Wei Wuxian, it brings old, long-buried things bubbling to the surface.
wide enough and wild by impossibletruths (@impossibletruths)
Wei Ying leaves. [Lan Wangji] follows.
the field meets the wood by astronicht (@astronicht)
Wei Wuxian is a dark shadow in the barley. Wei Wuxian is sorry for the kind of compassion that he is about to hand out.
(in which Lan Wangji is stolen for salt, and Wei Wuxian unravels the world, a little)
Linger in the Sun by etymologyplayground
"Tell Lan Zhan that I'm weeping uncontrollably," Wei Wuxian says to the juniors. "Tell him I'm truly pitiful and he needs to do everything I say until I'm well again."
Lan Congyi is in the middle of carefully holding his eyelids open to check his pupils, but he still obeys, bless him. "Hanguang-Jun, Senior Wei would like us to tell you that he can't stop crying and he'd like for you to do everything he says until he's better." There's a moment of silence, and then Lan Congyi says to Wei Wuxian, "Hanguang-Jun says he already does everything you tell him."
--
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji find themselves cursed, unable to see or hear each other. They figure things out anyway.
moonlight caught in mutton fat by Raitelzen
The Twin Jades of Lan get turned to jade.
The Fire Lapping Up the Creek by notevenyou
Wei Wuxian travels to Lanling for his nephew’s one-month celebration alone, without Wen Ning.
Lan Wangji lives with the consequences.
hunters seeking solid ground by Attila
“Hanguang-jun,” Wei Wuxian repeats. His heart clenches. He wants—but he’d really meant to have this nightmare stuff down before they met again, so he wouldn’t find himself relying on Lan Wangji’s nearness. He’s not supposed to go back yet. But he’s so tired, and his will crumbles. “Yeah,” he says. “All right. Take me back to Gusu with you.”
A Lot of Edges Called Perhaps by hansbekhart
The funny part is - and it is a little funny, even if Wei Wuxian has no one left to share the joke with - they never have. Not anything. He has never kissed any part of Lan Zhan besides his slim hands; never been even partially undressed with him anywhere besides a miserable, xuanwu-infested cave. It’s always been like this between them, this simmering need, this desperate understanding: a knowledge so deep that it lives somewhere in his bones, that if he wanted to have Lan Zhan he could have him, and if Lan Zhan wanted Wei Wuxian he could have that too. But they never have.
come home to my heart by occultings (microcomets)
On a night hunt, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji get cursed and stuck in each other's bodies. As you would expect, shenanigans ensue.
from the other side of sorrow (series) by Sour_Idealist
Wang Lingjiao takes her time mentioning the Wen Supervisory Offices. Yu Ziyuan cuts off Wei Wuxian's sword hand in compliance with the Wens' demands, but Lotus Pier still falls. Its children manage as well as they can.
hills and rivers (series) by LtLJ
Word has it that the Yiling Patriarch is back up to his old tricks somewhere in the woods of Tingshan. But the truth is, it was Jin Ling's idea.
Lynchpin by ShanaStoryteller (@shanastoryteller)
He can’t get Jin Guangyao’s words out of his head.
If he’d only believed in Wei Wuxian, if he’d only been willing to stand up for him, could it all have been avoided?
I will be chasing a starlight by feyburner and sundiscus (@feyburner @sundiscus)
“You know what?” Wei Ying said. “I think we should be friends.”
“Vulcans do not have friends,” said Lan Zhan. He was staring very determinedly at the screen in front of him.
Wei Ying frowned at him. “That can’t be right.”
总有一天; a place to hide (can’t find one near) by yiqie
That’s just the thing, isn’t it? Wei Ying feels nothing. He doesn’t feel anything, and this emptiness should scare him. He knows he should be scared. He wants to be scared. He isn’t. Fear itself is never scary; fear is just a response. It means that your body wants you alive. It’s the absence of terror that scares him.
Our Eyes on the Road by etymologyplayground
Lan Zhan is driving to Chicago. Wei Ying tags along.
Meng Yao vs. the Board of the Homeowner's Association (series) by Ariaste
“It is not a coup,” Meng Yao says, which he has said at every weekly covert cheeseburger assignation since they began doing them. “A coup is, quote: a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government. Unquote.”
“The HOA counts as a governing body. Trying to take it over is a coup.”
this one goes utterly off the rails after a while but its fun
when the sun goes out by travelingneuritis
You can fit a lot of living into the end of the world.
grave goods by luckymarrow
Death is banal. It’s boring. It happens every day. It happens to someone else, always, until it doesn’t.
One day, it’ll happen to you, too.
-
Wei Ying, PhD candidate, licensed mortician, and world's second best boyfriend, after Lan Zhan, of course, thinks he knows all there is to know about grief until the sudden deaths of his adoptive parents upend the lives of everyone in their orbit. A study in grief, mourning, and semi-intentional child acquisition.
a tide in two seas by occultings (microcomets)
A midnight train, two unexpected encounters, and a rift in spacetime.
I want to stay up all night by feyburner
“You wanna try?” Wei Ying joked. He was expecting a flat no. It didn’t come.
living in my memory/living in my mouth by tardigradeschool
Wei Wuxian dies at twenty-two and doesn’t come back. Lan Wangji dies in an “unfortunate accident” in a temple in Yunping at thirty-seven. The world moves on.
Thousands of years later, Wei Ying and Lan Zhan have a senior thesis in cultivation to co-write on the Yiling Patriarch. It doesn’t go exactly how they were expecting.
this was actually the first fic i ever read for this fandom and i love it so much
theartofmadeline
annaxmalina
dededos
snowghoul
kaledo-art
