talk to me about RIP angry grape (and pls show the light of day to the therapy galore fic !! )
The problem with ‘everyone gets therapy’ is that ... honestly, parts of it are OOC. It had to be in order to work, because my wife was like “I just want a fic where Wei Wuxian gets therapy and people help him out and everyone ends up happy” and uh. That was. Hard to pull off lmao. I did it! But there are some moments where I was writing like “lol yah this would happen sure”.
RIP Angry Grape is the one where Jiang Cheng dies at Nightless City instead of Jiang Yanli! She and Lan Wangji become close friends and raise A-Yuan and Jin Ling together (and eventually realize Jin Guangyao is behind everything and are like ‘......fuck’). I’ve gotten chunks of it written and I think it’s one of my best ones yet! Here’s a snippet from the beginning:
Lan Wangji half-turned. “Come to Lotus Pier with you?”
“Yes,” Jiang Yanli said.
He shook his head. “I cannot. I have been sentenced to three years in seclusion and repentance in Cold Pond Cave.”
Gently, Jiang Yanli said, “I understand that, Hanguang-Jun, but think about what is best for A-Yuan. He clearly looks upon you as a father. He is accustomed to you. Would it not be traumatizing for him, to be brought to Lotus Pier without you?”
“Then leave him here with me,” Lan Wangji said.
“And what will happen to him on the days you are repenting in the cold pond, once you are well enough? Who will stay with him then? Are you sure the other disciples will treat him well?” Jiang Yanli hesitated, then took a chance. “Do you want him raised as you were? Where the mere act of expressing one’s emotions was shut down so completely that you were never able to express yours?”
“I would not allow him to be raised that way.”
“Please,” Jiang Yanli said. “Please, Hanguang-Jun, let me bring him to Lotus Pier. You know A-Xian would want him raised there, if he’d had the choice. He was so happy there, once upon a time, before the war. Can you not respect his wishes? And can you not - let me care for you, as he would wish me to? To help you in your recovery from a punishment that you know was unfair and undeserved? We are the only two people in the world who loved A-Xian until the end. Can we not agree on how to raise his son?”
Lan Wangji sat with his eyes closed for several long minutes as Jiang Yanli finished applying the clean bandages. “I thought to serve my full punishment as a way of showing the elders that it would not break me,” he finally said. “That no matter what they sentenced me to, I would not back down. I would never agree with them that Wei Ying was not worthy of what I felt for him, that I was wrong for feeling as I do. But you are right. This is about what is best for A-Yuan. And I have nothing to prove to them.”
