Uffish Thought

Booting this out the door before Yuletide hits! Quite a hodgepodge of fandoms from November: three fics from Nirvana in Fire out of the annual NIF fic exchange, plus fic from The Mandalorian, The Witcher (no S2 spoilers), DCU, Supernatural, The Untamed, and an original superheroes fic.

NIRVANA IN FIRE

with honor by tciddaemina (Lie Zhanying/Jingyan)

For seven months, Zhanying watched his mother grow more thin and gaunt, watched his brothers grow more brittle, the bags beneath their eyes deepening with every long night spent in the workshop. For seven months, Zhanying watched his youngest siblings smile and laugh and try to pretend their stomachs weren't still rumbling when they went to bed, growing thinner every day, and in the eighth month Zhanying said no more and joined the army.

Not my usual pairing, but this slow burn backstory romance was fantastic, following Zhanying through his service in Prince Jing’s army and their changing relationship over the years. Fealty and pining and wordless chemistry, oh my!

Blackbirds by sandalwoodbox (vid, gen)

Cai Quan and Shen Zhui have been waiting for this moment.

This is a great vid for anyone who has feelings about our favorite ministers finding someone worthy to follow, and their friendship.

Lilies That Bloom by circumference (gen)

Liyang, after the trial.

Sweet short piece about Liyang getting some answers re: MCS, and starting to spread her wings again.

OTHER

Crash and Burn by Aureutr_Accoredge (The Mandalorian, Din/Luke)

There had been no Seeing Stone on Tython that Grogu could use to call for a Jedi. They had survived Gideon's light cruiser mostly by luck. And now Din Djarin is trapped between trying to resume his old life with Grogu in tow or facing what wielding the Darksaber truly means for him and his people. Mostly he just wants a nap.

Luke Skywalker is looking for Jedi artifacts he can use to help build a curriculum for the school he seeks to create. Not that he knows where it will be. Or how to find pupils. But then he runs into a shiny stranger whose beskar armor makes him a null space in the Force. And he doesn't know who Luke is.

Intrigued (and in need of parts to repair his ship), he Skywalkers his way into tagging along on the latest bounty.

I LOVED this: it’s very long and plotty dealing with Din becoming Manda’lor, with a great meet-cute to slow burn romance, but mostly this author gets Luke Skywalker in all his dorky-epic glory. Really interesting treatment of Luke’s trauma from his fight with the Emperor and the war generally, and the rare Din/Luke fic that really showcases Leia.

Silver and Copper by Heronfem (Witcher, Geralt/Jaskier)

Geralt is just supposed to pass through the quiet Lettenhove area. He's not anticipating being begged by its people to help save their viscount from a curse that keeps him from daylight. Lord Jaskier, they call him, and he's likely dying.

As Geralt struggles to untangle the ugly web of history that has lead to the increasingly complicated curse, he finds himself spending more and more time with the strange young viscount and wondering just what he might have been before the curse, and who he might be after. But things are not always as they seem, and as the curse tightens its grip on Jaskier, Geralt is forced to face the fear of failing yet another person whose choices were stolen from them.

Very AU, but a gorgeous dark fairytale with a strong backbone of hope and community. Mind the warnings - Jaskier’s father is a definite monster in this.

Exit Strategy by smilebackwards (DCU/Batfamily, gen)

Batman needs a Robin and Batman has a Robin. Tim is just extraneous now, vestigial. He’s a bandage over a healed wound. He doesn’t know what he’s hanging on to.

Or: Tim didn’t expect his exit strategy from the Batfamily to involve quite so much bonding time with Damian over Wayne Enterprises bureaucracy.

*rolls around in the Tim feels* *and the Tim-Damien brotherly feels* Mmm, delicious.

and you can use my skin by unicornpoe (Supernatural, Dean/Cas)

Cas comes back. Dean can’t stop touching him.

This doesn’t break any new ground plotwise for a S15 fixit, but it’s beautifully written: immensely tender and healing and romantic.

Revenge is a Side Dish Best Served With Tea by merakily (The Untamed, Wangxian)

Despite popular opinion, Lan Wangji is actually:
   1. Terrible at diplomacy
   2. Surprisingly vengeful
   3. A master of holding grudges

Five times Lan Wangji gets his petty revenge + one time Wei Wuxian calls him out.

Very fun! Like the summary says, it’s tea-based petty bitch LWJ revenge fluff, with a nice underlying thread of affectionate-and-protective Wangxian.

His Greatest Adversary Yet by architeuthis (original superheroes, slash)

Doctor Nowhere doesn't do the nemesis thing. But the Blue Beacon hasn't been seen in a while, and the more he learns about why, the more it haunts him.

Wonderful mad scientist/superhero piece - Max is such a distinctive and hilarious narrator right from the start, the older-person-figuring-out-they’re-queer feelings are strong, and there’s a lot of deft worldbuilding in the background. [For a little bonus fic-of-fic porn, please enjoy All Along The Watchtower (Or At Least Against The Men's Room Door) by PersianPenName as well, which is very hot and funny.]

Managed to post these on Tumblr just under the wire (despite Tumblr's best attempts to eat my post), but I’m a bit late crossposting this month. March started with binge-watching The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty with @inmyriadbits, so there’s ten recs for that, seven for The Untamed, and four miscellaneous (Supernatural, Star Wars, Avatar, and BNHA), all under the cut because I couldn’t be bothered sorting them a second time.
 

I was busy watching 18 movies in one week, and then out of town and frequently without internet for another week, so these four fics are literally the only ones I bookmarked in March. Enjoy!

Still Life With Flerken by @copperbadge​ (Captain Marvel, gen)

Nick Fury: soldier, spy, strategist, cat dad.

Exactly the coda I wanted after the movie!

how to win friends and influence people by Bundibird (MCU, gen)

Someone talks shit about Tony, and, well, Peter isn’t about to let that happen. He doesn’t mean for things to escalate, but in his defense, he’s not the one who threw the first punch. That dubious honor goes to the shaggy-haired kid who apparently takes insults to Mr Stark as well as Peter does, and – well, Peter could hardly let the other boy take on five guys by himself, could he?

In which Peter meets Harley, and Tony shows up to interfere. No one should ever allow *Peter Parker* to be the most sensible person in a group, it’s too hilarious.

And This, Your Living Kiss by opal_bullets (Supernatural, Dean/Cas)

Only a very few people in the world know that the celebrated and reclusive poet Jack Allen is just Kansas mechanic Dean Winchester, a high school dropout with a few bucks to his name. Not that it matters anymore; life has left him so wrung out he never wants to pick up another pen.

Until, that is, a string of coincidences leads Dean to auditing a poetry course with one Dr. Castiel Novak. The professor is wildly intelligent, devastatingly handsome…and just so happens to be academia’s foremost expert on the poetry of Jack Allen.

I know, I know: Dean as a poet?!? Really? But I took a chance on this and it not only works as an AU, it’s a gorgeous story about grief and love and inspiration and all their tricky intertwinings, with a soupçon of identity porn to satisfy my tropey ass.

The Salt and Pie Guys by robotsnchicks (Supernatural, Dean/Cas)

Some overnight shifts at S-Mart are more interesting than others. Tara won’t be forgetting tonight’s shift anytime soon.

Fables of the Reconstruction by Mugatu (Walking Dead, Daryl/Jesus)

It’s more than two years after the end of the world and six months after the war with the Saviors when Daryl Dixon returns to Alexandria.

AU from juuust after I stopped watching in S6, thus avoiding Certain Bullshit. This author has an A+ Daryl POV, and uses her non-linear structure well to shift between the past slow burn character stuff and the tension of the current-time search & rescue.

Missing Pieces by flailinginlove (Naruto, Kakashi/Iruka)

Shinobi Enforcement Agency is the only bounty station (un)officially recognized by all of the Five Great Nations. It’d be the best place to bring in targets, if only there wasn’t so much paperwork involved.

When they don’t seem interested in taking out the new missing-nin in town, Kakashi wants to know why.

(Or, the one where both Kakashi and Iruka are missing-nin bounty hunters who go after the same target.)

Cheerfully fun AU heavy on the humor and competence porn.

No Reservations: Narnia by Edonohana (Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations RPF, gen)

I’m crammed into a burrow so small that my knees are up around my ears and the boom mike keeps slamming into my head, inhaling the potent scent of toffee-apple brandy and trying to drink a talking mouse under the table. But is it really the boom mike that’s making my head pound? I know for sure that my camera man doesn’t usually have two heads. I have to face facts. The mouse is winning.

I finally read this after seeing it recced approximately everywhere, and holy shit did it deserve all of those recs. If the prospect of Anthony Bourdain getting into a drinking contest with Reepicheep doesn’t immediately snag you…idk, I can’t help you. A vivid, funny love letter to both Narnia and food, accessible even without knowing Bourdain’s work.

My Love Should Be Heard and Not Seen by lurknomoar (Welcome to Night Vale, Cecil/Carlos)

Cecil Palmer is the best phone sex operator in the small company called Night Vale.  One night, a slightly tipsy and very lonely scientist dials his number, and gets far more than he bargained for - a late night conversation about advanced biochemistry, a brand new fetish for surreal horror, a surprisingly reasonable internship program, some newts, and slowly, strangely, the love of his life.

Yes, I am also amused that I read two separate awesome phone sex AUs in one month. This one is sublimely weird and funny and sweetly romantic, as is right and proper for WTNV.

Tall Grass by aeli_kindara (Supernatural, Dean/Cas)

“I think we should have a garden,” Cas says.

Dean looks up from his beer. He hasn’t had that much to drink, but Cas still has a vague look of unreality about him, a splash of living color that doesn’t fit in the bunker’s echoing stillness. Dean didn’t hear him coming. A lot of the time, Cas is so unobtrusive it feels like Dean has the bunker to himself, with Sam away.

Dean shakes his head to clear it. “A — garden?” he repeats.

Man, this was such a great read but I’m not sure how to synopsize it? There’s a lush, warm, slow burn romance, domesticity a la Winchesters, road trip casefiles featuring various awesome ladies from the show, and a haunted plant! Highly recommended.

Follow the Heartlines by fakexpearls (Captive Prince, Damen/Laurent)

“Apologies, Exalted. What I meant – ”

 “What you meant is that you don’t know why I can’t remember anything since His Majesty flayed my back and had me dressed in gold paint and slave’s garb to serve him. But he was a prince then. And a king now.”

 Laurent tried to hide his flinch at the words, at his own memories. He looked away to the marble floor.

 Damianos continued: “You say that was four years ago. In that time, I seem to have aligned myself with him in country and in marriage. And no one tried to stop me.”