Notices by Soph (they/them) (soph_sol@federatedfandom.net), page 3

list so far:

- mentoring
- i’d trust you with my life but not with the last cookie
- seemingly have their own language incomprehensible to the rest of us
- we slept with the same asshole and now have a weird bond of solidarity as a result
- Big Divorced Energy; were never married
- metamours and digging it
- ride or die
- may genuinely believe they are siblings
- reluctant allies for the eleventh time
- co-gremlins
- We have the same mentor but we can't stand each other
- Drift Compatible even though we seemingly have nothing in common
- I don't like/trust people but you're the only person who's as devious as I am so there's grudging respect
- I hate you but also I'm ride or die for you
- one-sided enemies/nemesis/ultimate competition
- intellectual soul mates
- low-key friends
- low-key enemies
- one-sided devotion
- found family

I'm planning to put together a bingo card for non-shipping relationships and people are giving me SO many good suggestions, and it just makes me wish all the more that there was as much a tradition of fics that explore these kinds of relationships too! I want to read about ALL of them, repeatedly!

anyway definitely taking more suggestions still!

heyyyyy do you want to listen to a panel consisting of me and @roland and acernor chatting together about the joys and benefits of trans fic by and for trans friends? SURPRISE you can do so this Saturday at the virtual FanWorks con! More details here: https://fanworkscon.com/schedule/

#tgcfthoughts how do ghost clones work? do you split your consciousness between multiple bodies and can see through all the different eyes at once and have to hold it all together in your mind? or does each body become entirely independent after creation, and you can only know what they know via communication, and then you can integrate the memories etc upon reabsorbing the clone? both of these options seem to have some significant flaws! or is there somewhere some kind of middle ground, or alternate direction for this to go?

we don't see much of how hua cheng and his clones work, and even less of he xuan's clone network! and of course, like with so much, I want to understand more fully!

#tgcfthoughts "This was probably the first time Pei Ming had been so thoroughly humiliated in front of a woman, and it was also the first time a woman had saved him. He couldn't tell if he was angry or if it was simply his pride throwing a fit, but his face went dark red for some reason or other."

ok pei ming absolutely needs to spend some more time experiencing humiliation at the hands of a woman. you know, consensually. maybe tied up.

#FicRec #Rec #TGCF #HuaLian

Your Sweet Breath On My Dice, by Siamesa

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51901651

- canon divergence story where ghost king hua cheng manages to catch up with his god in a different way

- that way: xie lian accidentally triggered a curse and now he's swapped bodies with a mysterious ghost....?

- (INCREDIBLE premise)

- I love xl and hc's very different reactions to finding themselves in each other's bodies

- I think my favourite part though might be poor yin yu doing his best to handle the situation, between hc's firm instructions on how to treat xl, and xl's equally firm opinions on what to do

- a very fun read overall!

- 6k words in length

#FicRec #Rec #Persuasion #Austen

An Officer and a Gentleman, by
cedarboots

https://archiveofourown.org/works/40000401

- a rewrite of Persuasion featuring butch 4 butch Anne/Frederick

- god it's so GOOD and I am so EMOTIONAL about it

- I love all the ways in which it is both the same and different, the ways their identities affect the things they do and the choices they make

- and I mentioned in an earlier post how meaningful it is to be able to see gender non-conforming people like me in historical fiction, living their lives, finding ways to be happy, finding their community. shaking hands with them across time. I see you and you see me.

- making Persuasion specifically be the story told is so perfect too because of how it's about getting to know yourself better when you've had time to grow up more

- also there's lots of excellently-researched historical content

- and lots of feels

- READ IT READ IT READ IT

- it's such a lovely ending and I nearly cried about it

- 47k words in length

#FicRec #Rec #tgcf #mulian

beloved in your sight, by olivers_box_of_raisins

https://archiveofourown.org/works/51811684

- mu qing pov from the xianle trio era

- ft. class issues and teen relationship drama

- xie lian is an enormous martial arts nerd and a naive but shining prince; mu qing is pining but hyper-aware of class boundaries and how everyone sees him; feng xin is ready to judge

- it's so great and succeeds so well at what it's doing, I love it

- I love the last scene, which it ends on, about xie lian's appearance after he ascends. perfect ending to the fic

- 7k words in length

I have had my combeferre icon for probably a decade and I tend to be pretty change-averse. but what if I became embodied in a 19th century carving of a very fat bird instead

@Betty yeah whenever someone I know changes their icon I'm so destabilized, lol, a user icon is the visual embodiment of their entire person to me! but as we grow and age, our appearances change, and so may our icons on occasion. I GUESS.

#FicRec #Rec #tgcf #hualian

The Heart and All its Chambers, by etymologyplayground

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18994888

- modern au where hualian are lesbians

- xie lian has never had an orgasm, and hua cheng offers to help by loaning her a toy

- obviously the help ends up going further than that

- it's just so cute and sweet how much xl and hc love each other and take care of each other and are clearly SUPER into each other!

- and how good they are about each other's weird hangups about sex!

- 19k words in length

#FicRec #Rec #tgcf #hualian

On Our Way to Fall, by etymologyplayground

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17357930

- a cute quiet small domestic scene in puqi shrine in the middle parts of book canon

- see hua cheng as a cat! hear hua cheng's theory about breathing being sexy! enjoy hua cheng and xie lian being completely smitten with each other! also lady windmaster is a real pal as always

- it's super adorable

- 6k words in length

@thalassa @lirazel yeah I think gender is like...a whole bunch of things shoved together into a trenchcoat, and some people only have a fiew of those pieces, some have a different collection of those pieces, and some have all of them and some have none, and so sometimes people talk past each other a bit when trying to explain or describe what it is to be a gender. For some people their gender is what they were raised and socialized as, for some people it's what they feel they are inherently, for some it's the social role they find most appealing for themself, for some it's probably other things too! or any combination of the above. and then there's also that different people have different amounts to which their gender is important to them, which compounds the effect of the differences in what the gender is/comes from.

@lirazel @thalassa this sounds pretty agender of you, I've got to say! :P

your thoughts here remind me a lot of the efforts I used to go through to try to understand romantic attraction/interest, as an aromantic person. everything alloromantic people ever said to me about trying to explain what distinguishes romantic feelings and relationships from other forms of love felt to me like just social constructions of what is or isn't considered the "right" way to show affection within a certain framework of relationship. but I'm told that there is something inherently different about the feeling! I eventually came to a place of just being like, "you do you and I don't have to understand it, I'm glad you're having fun with your thing." but I will admit that it secretly still seems super fake, lol.

(for whatever reason, despite being agender, having an inherent gender identity does make more sense to me. idek!)

#FicRec #StoryRec

Over My Dead Body by shukyou

https://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/over-my-dead-body/

- content notes for ummmmmmm body horror? body grossness definitely. also, murder, plus sex with weird consent stuff going on. drug use. probably other stuff too.

- but it's not, like, horrifying and depressing about any of that! it's remarkably sweet!

- an absolutely incredible piece of original fiction about bodyswap/bodysharing that really makes its home in exploring the weirdness of the situation from the inside. What Is Embodiment. How to have a relationship with the body you're in. Bodies have a lot going on! The brain is part of the body.

- probably this story isn't for everyone, but if it is for you then you are in for a TREAT. I adored it.

- 14k words

#TGCFReadAlong ch 23

chapter summary: xie lian smashes the kneeling statue of himself, xie lian and hua cheng free the human captives that qi rong had gathered, and xie lian and hua cheng talk about what it means to know someone and like them. feng xin and shi qingxuan finally find the two of them. after some further chatter, and a brief blood rain specifically to target feng xin, hua cheng returns to ghost city.

#TGCFReadAlong ch 23

xie lian is described as having a usual expression that's gentle and serene, right after he destroys the statue of himself that's described as "ugly" because of its sorrowful expression, and a chapter after it's made clear that he's uncomfortable with anger, and in a part of his story where we rarely see him be happy

and all I can think about is the point much later in tgcf where xl tells hc that it's since he met hc that he's learned what a simple thing it is to be happy!

his usual expression at this point in his life is gentle and serene because he doesn't let himself feel any negative emotions, and he doesn't get to feel any positive emotions, so serenity is all that's left!

anyway I'm a big fan of xie lian giggling over ridiculous things with hua cheng and I can't wait till we get to see more of that

also I need to keep an eye out at the end of tgcf to see if he lets himself be angry at jun wu at all!

@lookitmychicken ooh that's gorgeous! you definitely need a trenchcoat if it's that trenchcoat

#FicRec #TGCF #hualian

Over the last couple days I reread the fic Digging for Orchids, by betts, and was reminded just how GOOD it is

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28058367

- modern AU hualian
- roommates! out of work actors! pretending to be husbands!
- hualian are canonically both just so weird about each other and so over the top about everything to do with each other always, and this fic captures that dynamic beautifully
- the author's careful attention to the physicality of scenes is so good and so important
- xie lian is living with chronic pain after a fall and it's so real about how that affects his life
- there are so many funny and on point observations of various characters and their relationships with each other!
- I had many feelings
- LOVE WINS.

me: dresses up as a bird for halloween

other people: so what character is it that you're dressed as?

no I just like birds!!!! blorbo from my trees.