zairaa | Entries tagged with nirvana in fire

Where has the time gone? The holidays came and went and the new year is already almost two weeks old. My RL holidays were pretty chill, this year—thank god. The fandom holidays, however... were quite something lol. One thing I do love about the holiday season is that it's also exchange season. I usually try to be reasonable and limit myself to signing up to one because I'm physically incapable to write short fic, at least when it counts.

This year I signed up to the nifexchange and it was a lot of fun. So much fun, in fact, that I wrote a 2nd fic as a treat because it was the perfect opportunity to write something for altie. I LOVE treat writing. All the fun of making somthing for someone else, none of the pressure of actually having to do the thing, devil may come. So I ended up writing 2 Yuletide treats as well, and since I had been working on my sequel to Return of the Cicada for a while already, I actually posted 5 stories in the past few weeks. Holy shit!?

Nirvana in Fire:

The sequel: Like A Dragonfly in Amber (featuring feels, porn and cute little bbs in love as well as Lin Chen being sassy and exasperated)

The ghost fic: Come Back to Haunt Me (featuring angst and feels and soulbonds)

The political AU: The Evidence of Your Survival (featuring childhood sweathearts lawyer!Jingyan and revolutionary!Mei Changsu)

The Disguiser:

The hooker fic: That Missing Piece of Me (featuring Ah Cheng in a qipao)

Ode to Joy:

The het porn: All I Want for Other People's Religious Holidays is You (featuring—as I have on good authority—"viscerally imaginable sex with Wang Kai")

But of course there is no rest for the wicked, and I'm working on the next thing. A long(ish) modern AU for Disguiser, because even if the fandom is tinier than tiny (hi, guys!!), I can't quit them.

( Sunday Six (NSFW) ) — Line, Hooker, Sinker

I’m not done with all the amazing creations the fest produced yet. There is so much lovely stuff! But since reveals will be soon, I wanted to rec my favourite things of so far:

Four seasons of promises (Mei Changsu|Lin Shu/Xiao Jingyan) by

altie

This art. It lives in my heart and holds my soul hostage. If you haven’t looked at it yet, please do. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking and so true to their relationship, following them from being kids to adults. It’s absolutely stunning.

giving up the ghost (Mei Changsu|Lin Shu/Xiao Jingyan) by

ladymerlin

This is the gift I received. It’s truly one of the loveliest identity reveal fics I’ve read, with great characterisation and such a soft, intimate mood. It’s beautiful.

Across Distant Lands (Gen, Mei Changsu|Lin Shu & Xiao Jingyan) by

romantic_drift

Epistolary fic with letters Consort Jing writes post canon. It’s wonderfully true in its voice and leads up to a fix-it that left me screaming.

White Peonies (Lin Chen/Xiao Jingyan) by

asya_ana

This story felt like a beautiful snow globe. Like a hidden gem. It paints such a wonderful picture of a meeting of these two and the limited time they have. It’s quiet and intimate and simply beautiful.

Xiao Jingyan and the Cursed Cousin (Lie Zhanying/Xiao Jingyan) by umichii

The world building in this one was just truly intriguing. It’s like a Chinese Harry Potter, and I fell in love with this version of Jingyan.

Have a look at all the amazing creations in the NiF exchange collection!

(Edited to include authors after reveals.)

I’ve been writing so much omg.

daroh told me the other day my muse was on high-quality cocaine, and that’s exactly how it feels. As a result I have now roughly 23k word in three fics in the posting queue and I can’t wait to finally reveal them. I also have WIPs open in four different gdocs? HALP!?

So while I’m working on these multiple stories, I realised that I’ve been writing a lot in a canon / canon divergence context lately and while it’s fun to fix and add stuff that you would have loved to see in your favourite shows, it’s also somewhat limiting. It's one of the reasons I’ve always really loved to write AUs. I’ve written dozens of them in Merlin fandom. Part of the fun for me is that you have so much more room to just let your story go where it wants to go.

I also felt like I might have the guts and inspiration to write something longer again. How long? No idea. I’m not saying it’s going to be 15k or 30k or 60k. Just something with the potential to stretch its wings and go somewhere.

So, while I'm getting closer to finishing the sequel of Return of the Cicada, I’ve been toying with a few ideas. One of them is a NiF Harry Potter AU, that’s not set at Hogwarts. I got the idea from a prompt in the NiF Exchange but knew it wouldn’t be able to get it done for the fest. So I put in on the backburner, but this week I started writing a little bit:

“Handsome, isn’t he?” a female voice remarked, and Mei Changsu turned around to find Mu Nihuang standing next to him, a twinkle in her eyes. “Too bad he never smiles.”

“Pardon?”

Apparently this was a day for unexpected meetings he really should have foreseen. After all, he had known that Nihuang was teaching at Hogwarts now, but he had not expected her to be at the platform in King's Cross. Mei Changsu raised his eyebrows at the woman who had once been one of his closest friends, and now had no idea who he was.

“You were staring,” she said, amusement evident in her tone as she nodded at a conspicuously empty part of the platform where Xiao Jingyan was standing, talking to his son.

“I just wondered why everyone seems to be avoiding him,” Mei Changsu said with faked casualness, but couldn’t stop himself from frowning when he saw a shadow pass over her face.

“Isn’t that obvious?” she asked. “They’re afraid of him.”

It's been a while since I did Sunday Six, and technically it's already Monday, but who cares, right...? I've mostly been writing for my Nirvana in Fire Exchange fic, and that is obviously secret, but I'm also still working on my sequel to Return of the Cicada.

So this is another little snippet of that:

“Jingyan! Jingyan!”

“Still the same dreams, hm?”

Mei Changsu sits up. His blood is pounding in his ears, and tries to calm his breath, but Lin Chen seems unperturbed. He is sitting next to Mei Changsu’s bed, pouring him a cup of tea before giving him an almost withering look. “I wonder if this could be significant. Maybe your subconscious wants to tell you something?”

Instead of an answer Mei Changsu only narrows his eyes at his friend and glares until Lin Chen sighs and hands him the cup with the awful concoction he has made him drink every morning since he arrived.

“How long do you want to keep him in the dark? With so many people around him already knowing, don’t you think it will come out sooner or later?”

Mei Changsu quickly turns his eyes away, but he can’t fool his old friend.

“Oh, so it already did,” he says with unholy glee in his voice, because he’s an absolute prick. “I assume that’s why you‘ve been avoiding him.”

I have struggled with my word-making since I came back from vacation. After spending a lot of time with my Disguiser series, I'm back writing Nirvana in Fire. More precisely, the sequel to Return of the Cicada.

After lots of rewatching and wrestling with the Yeti-storyline, I decided to... mostly ignore that. XD I also decided to dive into Mei Changsu/Lin Shu's POV, and that linear story-telling is for the weak. So this is a little snippet of him when he was still recovering from Mei Ling.

Tears were streaming down Lin Shu’s face, burning his raw skin. His eyes open wide and frantically searching the darkened room, he tried to push himself up but his body felt like it was carved from stone. A living statue, barely able to move his head.

“Jia!” His tongue was a thick lump in his mouth, nearly choking him, but he tried to force the name out. He had to know—

“No. Not that one,” a tired voice came from his left.

“Jia—”

Light steps drew closer, and he was pushed back into the pillows by gentle hands that Lin Shu had no strength to resist. As weak as a newborn, as the man liked to remind him. He remembered now. Remembered the prison he was in, with only the man and the pain as his companion.

The man sighed. “He’s fine,” he said, pulling up the blankets around Lin Shu before he added quietly, “Or, well, alive at least.”

A tale of a story growing into all kinds of directions, including flashbacks apparently. Or what happens when you try to develop character background and end up writing origin fic(lets).

“Jingyan,” he said with uncharacteristic hesitancy. “Have you ever kissed anyone?”

“What?” Jingyan laughed awkwardly. “No, of course not. Who would I have kissed?”

When Xiao Shu didn’t answer, Jingyan rolled over, propping himself up on one elbow as he stared at his friend through narrowed eyes. “Wait. Did you kiss someone? Nihuang?” He didn’t quite know why this seemed so outrageous. Xiao Shu had been betrothed to her ever since they were children, but— “You kissed Nihuang?”

Xiao Shu shrugged. “She kissed me actually,” he said, sounding just a little smug.

Jingyan didn’t know what to say. His cheeks felt hot, and his guts were twisting. “How was it?” he asked quietly.

Xiao Shu’s dark eyes found his. “Would you like to find out?”

Also, this is at 5.3k now. Anyone willing to bet I can finish it under 10k?

This is another little snippet from my Nirvan in Fire fic (don't hold me to the six, my sentences are short. It's a style thing...). The sole mission of this fic was to get Jingyan a hug. Well, that's how it started. It might turn into the whole "Have-them-acknowledge-their-feelings" and also "Fix-it" and possibly throw in a happy ending, because why wouldn't you bend the universe towards justice if you have the power to do so? The first 4k have gone through beta, and thankfully

asya_ana has assured me it's not completely whackadoodle OOC, which is a relief because MCS is a damn bastard to write.

“You know, it’s quite strange,“ Jingyan said with an impassive face, but his tone hard. “I never told Nihuang about the hidden path on the Northern slope. And neither did you. It was supposed to be our secret.” He paused. “I kept it.“

Mei Changsu didn’t react, but it was that non-reaction that Jingyan realized was Xiao Shu’s biggest giveaway.

“Do you find me silly, to have cherished your memory as I have?” Jingyan pressed on. “To keep your bow. Your favourite books. To hold on to every little piece of you like a secret treasure?”

I had not planned to watch Nirvana in Fire. When I finally did, I didn't think I would get fannish over it. When I finally couldn't deny my Wang Kai obsession any longer, I was STILL NOT GOING TO WRITE FIC!! Well, joke's on me.

Jingyan closed his eyes and let the familiar pain cut through him, sharper than any enemy’s blade on the battlefield. Thirteen years had passed, but Jingyan still felt as if it had been yesterday that he was told that the brother he had looked up to was a traitor, that the Chiyan Army was no more, and the boy Jingyan had loved since early childhood was dead, without honor, his body left to rot on the icy fields of Meiling. It was like being ripped apart, skin and tendons and flesh, until his heart lay exposed, withering in the sun. Thirteen years ago, the anguish and rage had completely consumed him, and it was a small wonder that he‘d only been sent away—as far as was possible without calling it exile—where he had learned to lock his emotions away in his heart and carry them with him like shards of a life broken beyond repair.

The most perfidious of emotions, though, was hope. Hope, where none was to be had, was a bitter poison, and Jingyan had thought he had rid himself off it. But then Mei Changsu had arrived in Liang and, slowly but mercilessly, hope had clawed its way back into his soul.