#mama lan

[only10th]

Thinking about Mama Lan sneaking out to the garden when she was pregnant with lwj and just sitting in the flowerbed of gentians. Talking to her precious A-Zhan and how he’ll be the kindest and rebellious Lan to ever Lan.

It took a while, but her words became the truth 🥹🥹🥹

[dudelez-doodles]

Name! Mama Lan

What should I name Mama Lan for the LWJ2Pretty Agenda Fic? 🤔🤔🤔

常茹芸 - Chang Ruyun ~ Free like a cloud (diff. accent)

顾怜影 - Gu Lianying ~ To gaze upon a sad reflection

常如韵 - Chang Ruyun ~ Charming/full of charm (diff. accent)

Voting ended onSep 15, 2025

[lilapplesheadcannons]

Madam Lan: Did you enjoy playing with your xiongzhang's friends, A-Zhan?

Baby Lan Wangji: *Shy nods

Madam Lan: Where is your xiongzhang, by the way?

Lan Wangji: With shufu.

Madam Lan: And where's your shufu?

Lan Wangji: *Suspiciously silent

Somewhere else

Lan Qiren: I am so terribly sorry Wangji bit them. I assure you we will bring out his teething ring back again!

[gentil-minou]

Gentians on Doorways

Written for the @mdzsrbb and inspired by the beautiful artwork made by @wrecklwj !

“How were you and my mother…acquainted?” “Acquaintances? She was my best friend!" ~ After a decade of living abroad, Lan Zhan returns to China to sort through his mother's affairs after her death. There, he meets Wei Ying, his mother’s friend who she'd commissioned to illustrate a book of nursery rhymes. But Lan Zhan is out of his depth in a land that was once his home. After all, there's no step-by-step guide for when your mother dies.

Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Wakes & Funerals, Falling In Love, parental loss, Expat Lan Zhan, Artist Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian, writing a funeral scene and trying to not make it accidentally horny aka the wangxian curse, just lots of feelings about moving away from your parents, and the fickleness of memories

Lan Zhan & Madam Lan + Wangxian | Complete | 33.7K | Rated T

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Preview under the cut

The hallway seems to stretch into infinity, each click of the head teacher’s heels echoing through the vastness of space. A preposterous exaggeration, given that the feet that tread these walls belong primarily to small humans with smaller legs, and such a length would be impractical.

To Lan Zhan, in this moment, it’s the longest hallway in the world.

The head teacher gestures for him to follow her around the corner, as if Lan Zhan was like her young disciples and prone to getting lost in a singular hallway with no intersections. She’s younger than Lan Zhan had expected for a head teacher of an elementary school. She can’t be more than a few years older than him.

"Her classroom is just this way, south facing,” Haung-laoshi rambles, sending him another overly kind, pitying glance. “She loved that room. Lots of natural sunlight."

Lan Zhan nods absently, more out of politeness than true agreement. The light streaming in from the windows that line this hallway grates on his jetlagged state. His head is absent of most thoughts, only the inane recognition that south-facing windows must have meant her classroom would be sweltering and excruciating during a heatwave. Even now, the sun beats down on Lan Zhan, stifling in the late afternoon.

The windows face an inner courtyard. Distantly, Lan Zhan can hear the children laughing and playing, but much of it is drowned out by clicking heels on tiled floor.

He turns his head away from the glaring sun to the interior wall displaying a gallery of crudely drawn blocks and splotches of paint arranged unintelligibly on colored paper. A tiny placard next to each denotes the name of a kindergartener and the vision. Family pets, the playground, a favorite toy, a doting sibling.

A mother, her stick figure arms just out of reach of her stick figure child.

Hastily, Lan Zhan turns back to the endless hallway, where a wooden door seems to grow smaller and smaller as the walls expand outward impossibly so, like the distance is growing wider, not smaller, and clicking heels and laughing children run circles in his pounding head. Everything, from the rhythmic thumping of Lan Zhan’s shoes against tiled floors to the distant ringing in his ears, from the chipped paint along the baseboards to the glaring sunlight arcing overhead, pounds against Lan Zhan’s head like a stampede of charging elephants.

He should be running. Running and running, far and away before the stampede barrels over him leaving his body cracked and bruised in its wake. He shouldn’t be here. He should be anywhere but here.

Then, abruptly, the clicking of the heels ceases when Huang-laoshi stops in front of that wooden door, now a normal size and directly in front of Lan Zhan. A tiny frosted glass window rests above the doorknob in a vertical pane, with leftover pieces of tape missing the accoutrements they once secured.  A row of neatly painted purple flowers blooms through the wood on the bottom of the door, caught in motion as they dance in an unseen wind.

There is no wind to suggest this. He knows simply by looking at the brushstrokes, familiar swirls like the ones that once adorned the wooden doors of his childhood home. He can see it clearly in his mind’s eye, each stroke of a well-worn paintbrush and the subtle sighs of contentment when the artist in question lifted her brush and beamed back at him with pride.

“What do you think, ZhanZhan?”

This far away, the children’s roughhousing fades into the din leaving behind empty space.

Somehow, silence is worse.

“You must be so shocked. It was all so sudden…” Huang-laoshi remarks kindly as she retrieves a crumpled tissue from her pocket and dabs at the corners of her eyes. “I know I already said this, but I am so sorry for your loss.” She lifts a hand as if to pat his shoulder, but Lan Zhan takes a measured step to the side and her hand falls to rest by her side.

Outside, sunshine cascades through flowering trees and leaves speckled shadows dancing in the grass. A breeze slips in through the windows and winds through strands of Lan Zhan’s hair. The subtle scents of a summer on the rise, lying in wait for season’s change.

The breeze does little to soothe his heated skin. “Thank you,” Lan Zhan says politely with little inflection.

Huang-laoshi pauses, waiting for Lan Zhan to continue. But Lan Zhan has little more to say.

Ever since he’d arrived here, everyone seems to think Lan Zhan has something more to say.

What is there to say about his mother dying?

Read more on Ao3

[yibo-wang]

when does it stop hurting?

[prettypeonylanwangji]

#ThoughtOfTheDay☆ where Lan Wangji cut his hair for the first time in his life. Since his childhood, he had very long hair. They were glossy, shiny, unrealistically pretty. After all, his mother loved to take care of it. Now that she didn't have hair anymore, Lan Wangji wanted to make her happy and grew his hair long enough for his mother to play with it. So each day, Lan Wangji went to school with an adorable hairstyle. His mother tried it all ; ponytail, half-ponytail, buns, braid... He even went shopping with his uncle to bought some accessories, so his mother could have a box full of colorfuls scrunchies, headbands, hairclips, and the list goes on. At school, a few people tried to make fun of him, but Lan Xichen always defended him. No one dared to approach him anymore.

Time passes, and Lan Wangji was now fourteen. His mother still didn't have hair, and seemed more tired as days flew by. Lan Wangji was now old enough to figure out what was going on. But he tried his best to enjoy every moment he had with her. She was still there. Maybe not tomorrow, but tomorrow was too far from now. He talked about his piano lessons, his favorite books, cartoons. About his Uncle and how his hair recently turned grey, about Lan Xichen and his emo phase. He talked about everything he could think of. Even school, through school was hell. But at school, there was a classmate he liked. He was smart, but irritating. He loved teasing Lan Wangji, greeted him every morning and seemed to want all of his attention. And, well, he was pretty too. His mother smiled at that, and told him she would like to meet him. Lan Wangji blushed furiously. Never, he said.

And tomorrow came.

And tomorrow, she died.

In her bed, on her own, while the flowers just started to bloom.

It was nearly spring, her favorite season.

But she didn't have enough time to see it.

That night, Lan Wangji cut his hair for the first time in his life. And he felt ugly, and stupid, and he wanted to see his mother.

He cried. Cried so loud he thought he was going to die, too. He felt his heart being pierced by thorns, so many of them he could feel them everywhere.

He hated his hair.

Hated this life.

Hated himself.

And he wanted so much to die.

Just to see his mother, one last time.

[moved-to-shijieswife]

just... tall, broad shouldered mama lan with gold eyes, who was tanned from helping her father farm, whos hands were calloused and work rough. who didnt lose any of that, even trapped in that house, still tanned as if the sun couldnt stay away from her. who had a fire in her eyes, that stayed up until the last time lan zhan saw her.

lan zhan who grows up every bit a maiden of gusu lan - slender and fair, with her fathers nose and her shufus full lips. who looks at xiongzhang, broad shouldered and tall, with mamas long, straight nose; and envies. who looks at her gold eyes and big hands, runs her hands through her thick hair, and holds them close to her heart. a remembrance of her mother.

who loses the fir ein her eyes, presses it down, to stop making her shufu fear.

who meets wei ying, promised to jiang gonzi as his second wife, when she is fifteen. wei ying, who is infuriating and lose, who flirts as easy as she breathes, all quicksilver tongue and huli jing eyes. who is so painstakingly good, kind in the way she patiently helps those behind in lessons, for all she criticises them.

who has a fire in her eyes, too, yet so different from lan zhans mama. who reignites the fire in lan zhan, too, that she though was long extinguished.

her shufu is scared, again. lan zhan voices her opinions, now, fights agaisnt what she believes is not right. shufu looks into her eyes, and despsairs.

wei ying is to be sent away.

wei ying cries in lan zhans arms, the night before she leaves, unusually small and meek. lan zhan decides, that day. wei ying does not want to marry jiang gongzi, or face yu furen, or leave lan zhan, for what is surely the last time.

she leaves her forehead ribbon and jade pendant, on the bed. she leaves with her xiongzhangs blessing and a qiankun pouch full of endless money. she leaves with her wei ying.

years later, lan zhans looks at her reflection. her fathers nose and shufus mouth, her mamas eyes. she sees a woman, still fair, but freckled - the suns kisses. she has grown, as tall as xiongzhang, shoulders broad, comfortable for a-yuan and a-yu to climb on. her hands are still big, calloused, not from farming, but swordwork and guqin, weaving and cooking.

she is still not quite sure whos smile she has. but she is sure it is a reflection of her wifes, the same way the moon reflects the light of the sun.

[bi-the-wei]

*lotr plays in the background*